Death's Embrace
by MaskedKitten
Summary: Even in death, they still loved each other. Now, one hundred and seventy two years later, they find each other again. But can love overcome fear, obsession, and even murder? New chapter up May 25th.
1. Death's Embrace

Disclaimer - Unfortunately for me, I do not own Dark Shadows or its characters. I wasn't even born during its original run! I certainly wouldn't mind owning a few characters though… :)

A/N - This is a prologue of a full length story. It's is divided into two parts, one with Josette, and the other with Barnabas in 1967, shortly after his 'arrival' at Collinwood. The full story is an alternate universe'what if' concept that involves Josette coming to exist in the present time during the 1967 early Barnabas episodes. Many characters from that time frame will show up in the story. A few will have rather significant roles. Please read and review!

* * *

**Death's Embrace**

He called her name over the wind in an agonized voice that she would not have recognized, had it not come from the man that she loved.

The man that she was now running from.

Tears streamed down her face as she ran blindly into the darkness of the night. Her heart was pounding in her chest, and she wanted nothing more than to collapse onto the muddy ground and cry until her heavy sobs choked the torment from her heart.

But she could not stop, not while he was pursuing her, willing her to turn back, to go to him…willing her to return to welcome the horrible life that he wanted them to lead together.

A damned life that would last through all eternity.

Sobs wracked her fragile frame as the wind carried her name to her from his lips. It was the sound of desperation, of misery.

How she wanted to go to him. How she wanted to love him.

How she wanted to save him.

But her love could not save him. Nothing could save him, not now, not ever.

Her heart was bleeding, and it would continue to bleed out onto the ground and leave a trail for him to follow as he cried out for her.

Her love….

A monster.

There was no way to escape him, nowhere to go but over the cliff. There was nothing between them but the finality of death.

_Her_ death.

A tortured scream was the last sound she heard. As she fell into nothingness, she knew that the pained wail from above would haunt her far beyond this world and into the next.

There would be no peace, no rest, for her.

Long after her heart had stilled and her skin had grown cold in death's welcoming arms, Josette DuPres would still hear the voice of Barnabas Collins as he cried her name.

* * *

A soft melody drifted through the room and ensnared his senses with its sweetness and familiarity, just as it brought an agonizing warmth into his soul and an ache into his dead heart. 

Josette.

His lovely, lost Josette.

Barnabas Collins sat rigidly on the bed that had once belonged to her. Everything in the room had belonged to her, from the vanity and its contents to the enchanting music box he held in his hands.

He did not know what had compelled him to enter the room of his beautiful Josette. When dusk had come and had awakened him from his slumber, some inexplicable force had summoned him into her room, where he had remained for hours on the bed.

He had never placed himself upon her bed before. It was only for Josette - Josette, with her innocence and purity.

No, he had dared not place himself upon her bed. To do so would have been to taint it.

Before this night, he would never have committed such an act, but as he had entered the room, it had seemed to call to him, and he found he could not resist.

He only hoped that Josette could forgive him.

He thought of paying a call to his new family at Collinwood, but it was late, and Elizabeth would not be so receptive of him if he were to appear at the doors when everyone was likely to be asleep. They did not keep the hours that he did. They could sleep through the night and wake to the sunrise.

How he had wished once that he could see the sunrise.

His was an existence spent in the darkness, in the solitude of the night. He had almost forgotten the sun and how it lit up the sky. No matter how much he longed to remember, it was better forgotten.

He would never see it again.

Every evening when he rose from his coffin, he now yearned for eternal darkness so that he could roam the earth without fear of the dawn. But it was not to be, and so each morning he returned to the land of the dead.

He could already sense the approaching dawn, even as he sat motionless on his beloved's bed.

Wearily he rose, went over to the vanity, and carefully placed the music box on its surface. He closed the lid on the melody of Josette, and put out the candles that had danced a dying light on the walls of the past.

With one final gaze at the portrait above the fireplace, he left the room and Josette behind to return to his waiting coffin.

To death's embrace.


	2. Josette

**Chapter 1 : _Josette_**

Willie Loomis stood awkwardly in front of the basement door as he watched Barnabas Collins descend the stairs and disappear into the darkness.

He had wanted to go out, maybe get a drink at the Blue Whale to calm his nerves, but he hadn't. He'd been too afraid. What if, as soon as he made to leave, Barnabas caught him? No, he didn't want to get Barnabas mad at him. He figured he'd better stay put, in case he was needed for something.

He knew better than to upset Barnabas. He could still remember what pain felt like, and he was in no hurry to experience that again. He had stayed around the Old House all night and cleaned the place up, and occasionally wondered if he should go up stairs and see what Barnabas was doing, even though he knew if Barnabas needed him he would call.

As soon as he had risen, Barnabas had went up there and hadn't come back down, and Willie hadn't seen him the entire night.

He hadn't seen him, but he'd heard. He had heard the faint sound of the music box that had once belonged to Josette duPres.

Willie sighed and turned from the basement door and the coffin that Barnabas had returned to for the day. He wanted to go into town, get out of the Old House, but he wouldn't dare leave. He couldn't leave Barnabas in that coffin unguarded.

Willie didn't know whether it was the fear of what Barnabas would do to him if he found out that Willie had left him alone, or if it was the control Barnabas still held over his mind that kept him from leaving the house.

He thought it was probably both of those things.

He had tried running once, even made it to the train station. But Barnabas's hold on him was too strong. He could hear Barnabas's voice in his mind, willing him to turn around and go back to the Old House.

Ordering him.

Willie Loomis followed orders. What else could he do? He knew he would never be free of Barnabas Collins. His life was irrevocably changed the moment the chains on the coffin had been broken in the secret room in the Collins mausoleum. There was no changing his fate now.

He would have to serve Barnabas for the rest of his life. He would have to watch Barnabas play a role with the family, pretend to be a distant 'cousin' from England, and all the while he would know what Barnabas really was. He would know that during the day when they all thought him to be working, Barnabas was lying in a coffin downstairs. He would know on the nights that young girls would turn up with wounds on their necks that it was Barnabas who put them there.

Barnabas, who prayed on the blood of the living. Barnabas, who would kill to protect his secret. Barnabas, who didn't care that he had taken away a young woman's life by trying to force her into becoming the woman he'd loved and lost. A woman who had killed herself rather than become what Barnabas was.

If he had thought that there was a god that would answer his prayers, Willie Loomis would have prayed for Maggie Evans, the pretty waitress that Barnabas killed because of his obsession with the past. His obsession with Josette duPres.

It was futile. Willie Loomis's prayers wouldn't be heard, he knew that.

After he had done his work in the foyer, Willie found himself venturing up the stairs, heading toward the one room he knew he shouldn't step foot in. Barnabas had made it clear to him that he was not to go near Josette's room anymore, but Barnabas wouldn't know, not while the daylight kept him in the coffin.

Trying to ignore the pounding of his own heartbeat and the unease that unsettled his stomach, he opened the door as quietly as possible, even though he knew no one would hear.

The room smelled of jasmine, and it reminded him of the frightened and confused Maggie Evans when she was dressed as the woman in the portrait above the fireplace mantle. She had smelled like jasmine. Barnabas had made sure of that.

Josette's favorite scent was jasmine.

Willie stood in front of the fireplace and gazed up at the young woman that Barnabas Collins had tried to recreate in Maggie.

There was no doubt that Maggie Evans resembled Josette duPres. They looked a lot alike - especially at first glance - but Willie's eyes found differences.

Maggie's eyes, though just as dark, were not as wide. Her hair was not as long and dark, or as curly as Josette's. And though both were pretty, Josette seemed more fragile, like glass that would shatter too easily. Willie had seen Maggie cry and plead, but he had also seen Maggie's fire, her spirit. Her refusal to give into what Barnabas wanted, as foolish as it was, made Willie feel all the more for her.

He wondered what had made Barnabas love Josette so much, other than her beauty. What had Josette duPres been like, when she was alive? Had she loved Barnabas, or had she always feared him?

Willie shuddered. He couldn't imagine how the girl in the portrait could have loved Barnabas. He was cold and twisted. The things he had done, the things he forced Willie to help him do….

Willie could still hear Maggie Evans's pleas for her freedom. He could still hear her breath catch when Barnabas stepped into the room. He could still hear her screams, her sobs, when Barnabas had locked her in the basement as punishment for not submitting to him - for not forgetting her father, her boyfriend, Joe Haskell, or her own name.

What would that poor young girl think, if she could see what Barnabas had done to Maggie because of his obsession with her?

"I'm sorry," Willie muttered, and averted his eyes from the painting of the past.

"I'm real sorry."

He wasn't sure which one of the beautiful, dead young women he was apologizing to.

* * *

"I'm sorry," Burke Devlin apologized to his friend and occasional business partner, Frank Hamilton. "I would have stopped by the Inn last night to see you, but I was out with Vicki."

"How did I know Victoria Winters would have something to do with you not stopping by?" Frank smiled, and then laughed. "Who could've guessed that you would be the one to settle down first?"

Burke held up his hands. "Wait a minute, I haven't settled down just yet, you know. Besides, even if I do ask Vicki to marry me, who says we have to settle down?"

His friend's eyes had a brightness to them that Frank hadn't seen there in a long time, and Frank knew, that no matter what Burke said, he would settle down for Victoria Winters.

"When do I get to the woman who may end up making you an honest man?"

"When we get done with our walk, we can go on up to Collinwood. After all, we are practically on their property right now."

The two of them had met over coffee, then decided to walk on the beach. Frank had wanted to explore the area, and Burke had informed him that there wasn't much to explore, save for the woods and ocean - and of course, the Collins estate.

"She must be something, the way you talk about Collinwood as if you actually like the place and are friends with the people in it. I know when you first came here all you wanted was to ruin them, especially that stuffy Roger."

Burke laughed, but Frank could see his expression had gone slightly grim.

"No, Frank, that's not possible. At least it isn't with Roger. I'll never forget that he was responsible for sending me to prison. His sister, Elizabeth, the mistress of Collinwood, isn't so bad, and you've guessed how I feel about Vicki. Vicki loves that house for some reason, and all of the people in it. And if I want her to be in my life, then I may just have to accept them, too."

Frank raised his eyebrows and grinned. "I can hardly believe it - Burke Devlin is really in love."

"So when are you going to try it?" Burke asked, obviously trying not to appear exasperated by Frank's teasing. "You know, I always figured you to be married by now. You always were more of a romantic than me."

Frank sighed and gazed along the beach. The wind had picked up since they had left the coffee shop, and even the coat he wore was not enough to keep the cold air away from him.

"I don't know. Just haven't met the right girl, I suppose," he answered honestly. "It's true, I've always wanted to settle down, but I haven't met her yet, and so I'm waiting."

"Oh, you'll meet her," Burke assured him, in his usual confident, business-like manner. "If I can meet the right girl, than you can as well."

"Perhaps," Frank acknowledged. "You ready to head up to Collinwood and introduce me to your girl now?"

"We could be heading back. I'm sure her first lesson with David is over by now."

The two of them had stopped not far from Widow's Hill, a cliff overlooking the ocean. Burke had told him the story of Widow's Hill, but he had shaken it off. He didn't believe in dead, grieving widows, or that one could really hear their cries. It was probably just the wind and someone's overactive imagination, he'd said. Burke had agreed, calling the legend of the widows nonsense.

"Maybe we could go past the other mansion you told me about, the Old House," Frank suggested.

Burke had told him of the old mansion on the grounds that had once been the original Collins family home, and Frank's curiosity got the better of him. He had always loved looking at old homes, and the one Burke had described sounded very old indeed.

Burke had also spoken of a Collins that lived there. Barnabas was his name. An odd sounding name to Frank, and Burke had remarked that the odd sounding name went along with a rather odd man. Frank had gotten the distinct impression by the tone of Burke's voice as he told him about Barnabas Collins, that Burke didn't like the Collins family's English cousin at all. He had talked of him with a disdain that amused Frank, but Burke was always rather expressive when it came to anyone with the last name of Collins.

Still, from what he understood, Burke hardly knew Barnabas Collins. The man had apparently only just arrived from England a few months ago.

That only made Frank more curious and somewhat anxious to meet him.

Burke shook his head. "Barnabas never seems to be there during the day, and he likes his privacy. He would probably be angry if he caught us wondering around the Old House."

Frank grinned, and couldn't resist an opportunity to get underneath the unbreakable Burke Devlin's skin.

"Afraid of Barnabas Collins?"

Burke's face darkened. "Hardly. But Vicki seems to be very fond of him, so I plan to avoid any trouble unless it's absolutely necessary."

The two of them had begun to make their way away from the beach when Frank caught sight of a figure on the rocks below Widows' Hill. He turned to Burke and pointed in that direction.

"Hey, you see something over there?"

Burke scanned the rocky shore, and then nodded. "It looks like a girl," he observed in disbelief.

Frank frowned, confused as well. What would a girl be doing on by those rocks? "She might be in trouble, we should check it out."

He didn't wait for Burke's reply, he was already moving forward.

They reached the rocks at the same time, and Frank saw the prettiest girl he had ever seen before, unconscious and laying crumpled against one of them.

She had long and curly dark hair, with smooth, pale skin. She wore a flowing white dress that clung to her thin frame and went to her ankles. There was something rather strange about the dress, but Frank brushed that aside and quickly put it out of his mind. His only priority for the moment was to make sure that she was still alive.

He reached one arm gently underneath her, and lifted her shoulders and head up away from the rock. He was about to take her into his arms when her eyes opened.

Frank was momentarily caught off guard by her eyes, which were wide and dark. He realized when she began to tremble in his arms that she was afraid, and he tried to calm her with soothing words as Burke placed his arm around her and both helped maneuver her to her feet.

"It's all right. We're not going to hurt you," he spoke gently, trying not to further upset her. It was apparent that she was not well, and her fright could only make her condition worse. "We only want to help you."

"Help me?" she repeated in a whisper, and Frank was at once captivated by her voice. It was soft and low, and he thought he could detect a faint trace of an accent, though he couldn't place it offhand.

"You want to help me?"

She raised one hand to her face, her eyes were still wide with uncertainty and fear. But Frank could see another emotion there: confusion.

"How did you get here?" he questioned cautiously, and kept his arm around her waist. He raised his eyes to Burke's who was clearly as disturbed by what happened to the girl and how she'd come to be at the bottom of Widow's Hill as he was.

She seemed to look up for a brief moment, toward the cliff, but then she cast her eyes downward as they began to water. "I…….I do not know." A tear fell down one cheek, and her voice rose to a shrill intensity. "I do not know!"

"It's all right." Frank freed one of his hands to place around hers. They began to help her walk in the direction of Collinwood. "Can you tell us your name?"

"My name?" she whispered hesitantly, and stopped walking. The tone of her voice reminded Frank of a scared child, and she swayed as if she would collapse at any moment. "My name…."

"Your name," he repeated, and once more he met Burke's troubled gaze.

"Josette…."

The girl looked into Frank's eyes and repeated the name with more certainty before she fainted into his arms.

"My name is Josette."


	3. A Name

**Chapter 2 : _A Name_**

"The poor child. She seems to have no memory of who she is… I would hate to have her placed in a hospital, she's so lost as it is. I've called Roger in Bangor and informed him that she will be staying with us for the time being."

The voice beyond the door of the bedroom was kind and belonged to an elegant woman named Elizabeth Collins Stoddard.

She heard the now familiar voice of Frank Hamilton - one of the men who had found her by the ocean - reply, but she could not make out the words.

Rising as quietly as she could from the large four poster bed, she made her way slowly over to the oak framed mirror that adorned one wall and stared at her reflection.

Her eyes were empty.

She was empty.

"Josette," she addressed the young woman in the mirror. "Is my name Josette?"

It had been the name she had given to Frank, and to….Burke, that had been the other's name. She had no memory of anyone calling her Josette, for she had no memory of anything, any moment in her life at all. But somehow, the name had come unbidden into her mind and it had felt right. She frowned, and the young woman in the mirror reflected it.

Why had the name Josette felt so right if it was not her name?

She clenched her slender hands into fists as a sudden wave of anger coursed through her.

How could she know? Would she ever know?

Just as quickly, the anger disappeared and was replaced by fear and sadness. What was she to do? How could she stay with these strangers, allow them to give her access to their home and press herself and her troubles upon them?

When she had first regained consciousness, she had hoped that they would know her, recognize her, but they had not.

No, that was not entirely true. She remembered a look of shocked recognition on one brown haired girl's face, and Burke had murmured softly to the girl that she resembled Maggie… Was that why the girl had stared at her that way, because she resembled Maggie?

Was her name Maggie?

_My name is Josette…_

Again, the name of Josette floated into her mind and she pressed one hand to her forehead. Her name was not Maggie, it was Josette. It had to be. Why would the name come to her so easily and capture her with its certainty, if it was not true?

She tried desperately to think, to remember, but the emptiness of her mind frightened her, so she left the mirror and returned to the bed. She slowly lowered herself onto it and lay on the pillows. She curled underneath the comforter and attempted to regain the blackness of sleep so that she would not have to face the blackness of her mind.

She dreamed a dream that she would not remember when she would awaken, of black hair, the darkest of eyes, and a gold ring with an elaborate stone that matched them…….

* * *

Victoria Winters sat on the bench and watched as the sky began to darken for the coming night. The normally soothing sound of the fountain did little to sooth her nerves, but she'd found herself wanting to be outside anyway. 

She was relieved to see night arrive, for the day had been long and confusing to her.

She had just finished David's lessons for the day when Burke had arrived, not only with Frank, but with an unconscious girl in Frank's arms. She'd immediately feared that the girl had been attacked in the previous night, like so many other young women in Collinsport. The strange attacks had made everyone afraid, and Elizabeth had told both Carolyn and Victoria not to go out alone in the night for any reason. The police could find no explanation for the horrible occurrences, and could assure no one of their safety from them.

She had expressed her fear to them as they brought the girl into the drawing room and placed her gently on the couch. Burke had said that he wasn't sure what had happened to her, but that there were no marks on her neck like those found on the other victims. Victoria's first true look at the girl was when Burke had stepped away from the couch to telephone Dr. Woodard. She'd gasped in surprise, hardly believing her eyes.

The girl had looked so much like Maggie!

Maggie, who had been found on the beach and had died at the hospital after her father had brought her there.

Then she'd calmed, telling herself that there was no possible way that the girl could be Maggie. She moved closer to the couch and saw that. Though the girl was eerily similar to Maggie, there were several differences. Her hair was longer, as well as darker and curlier, her face and lips fuller.

However, there was still something familiar about her, something that Victoria couldn't quite place as she knelt beside Frank, who had not taken his eyes away from the girl since he'd brought her into Collinwood.

She didn't understand why she felt the way she did, but she was certain, that - more than Maggie - the girl resembled someone else she'd seen…

When Burke had gotten off the phone with Dr. Woodard, she'd taken him aside and asked him if he or Frank knew what the girl's name was.

"That's the thing, Vicki," he'd said, his voice low, "I don't think she was positive herself. But then she said her name was Josette."

Josette!

Victoria had realized instantly why the girl had still seemed so familiar to her, even after she'd gotten over her passing resemblance to Maggie. She had reminded Victoria of the beautiful young woman in the portrait that hung in the Old House.

She had reminded Victoria of Josette Collins!

Burke had seemed to understand her reaction when he'd told her, but he hadn't been able to comment on it. Elizabeth had come downstairs into the foyer and he and Frank had quickly explained that they'd found the girl below Widows' Hill, and that she seemed confused as to her identity.

Widows' Hill…she had been found on Widows' Hill.

Victoria wrapped her arms around herself and tried to keep the night chill at bay. Her thoughts were filled with nothing but the girl that had been given a room next to hers upstairs in the mansion.

What did it all mean?

"Hey," Burke called, startling her out of her thoughts, "I knew I'd find you out here."

"Has Frank gone?" Victoria asked, as she moved over on the bench so that he could sit beside her. "Frank seemed very friendly," she said softly. "I'm glad you brought him to meet me."

Burke nodded. "I wish it would've been under better circumstances. He's one of the few good friends I've had since I got out of prison. We didn't get a chance to talk as much as I'd hoped we would. Still, he plans on staying in town for a little while. I think we'll get plenty of chances, especially since Elizabeth's letting the girl stay here. I think Frank's taken with her. I'm sure he'll want to check on her in a few days, see how she's doing."

"She seems like such a nice person," Victoria said softly. "I hope nothing awful happened to her that she can't remember. With everything that's been happening in town lately…."

She didn't continue. The night chill seemed to grow stronger and she shivered. Burke sensed her unease and put his arms around her. She leaned her head on his shoulder and felt his fingers slide through her brown hair.

"Maybe she'll remember in time."

"I hope you're right, Burke. I just couldn't imagine having no memory of my past. It's always been hard for me, not knowing if I had a family or where I came from. But to know nothing about myself at all would be dreadful. She must be so upset."

Burke kissed the top of her head. "She seems rather sure that her name's Josette."

Victoria disentangled herself from Burke's embrace and moved to the fountain, her mind once again on the girl and the portrait of Josette Collins. It was madness to even think of it. There was no connection between the girl and the woman who'd lived over a hundred years ago. There couldn't be.

Yet they looked so much alike. She'd been found near the bottom of Widows' Hill, and she'd said her name was Josette.

_I mustn't think of such impossible things!_

Victoria shook her head to clear it and jumped when a hand touched her shoulder, but she relaxed almost at once. It was only Burke. Burke, who was staring at her now in clear concern.

"Vicki, what is it?" he asked. He turned her gently to face him.

Victoria felt ashamed for it, but she didn't want to tell Burke of her thoughts. Burke was a very practical man. She knew he would merely say it was a coincidence and nothing more, and dismiss any connection between the two women as nonsense.

_But isn't that what it is?_

Victoria took a deep breath, about to confess to Burke what she had thought when he answered for her with a response that sounded much more reasonable to his ears, as well as to hers.

"It's her resemblance to Maggie, isn't it? It made you think of Maggie? It's all right to be upset, Vicki. I know you were friends with Maggie and she did remind me of Maggie when I first saw her, until I'd gotten a good look at her."

She could've shaken her head and told him the truth, but instead she nodded and allowed him to believe that was the only reason for her unease. He took her face in his hands and drew her lips to his for a kiss and Victoria became detached from everything outside of the two of them, as she often did when she kissed Burke. He could make her feel warm and safe like no other.

When they finally broke apart, she no longer felt so disturbed.

"Thank you," she whispered into his ear as he embraced her.

"For kissing you?" he asked in an amused voice, while his hands moved up and down her back. "For that Victoria Winters, I need no thanks. Only permission to do it again."

She pulled back, smiled, and gazed into his eyes. "Permission granted."

* * *

Frank gave a polite nod to the inn keeper as he headed to his room. He retrieved the key from his pocket, entered his small, temporary abode, then shut the door behind him. With a thoughtful look on his face, he sat down on the bed, removed his suit jacket, and tossed it carelessly over a nearby chair. 

Burke had described Collinsport to him before, but seeing it really made all the difference. He couldn't believe how accurate Burke's words were.

Burke had deemed Collinsport "the end of the world", and then proceeded to tell Frank how quaint everything was with the exception of the Collins estate. He'd warned him how different it was from the city, but Frank had brushed it aside and figured it really couldn't be all that….small.

And quiet.

Collinsport was especially quiet at night. He could count the number of people he had seen out and about as he drove back to the inn from Collinwood and it didn't even amount to five - that was including the inn keeper. Frank knew small town life was different than city life, but for the town to almost completely shut down just because the sun had set seemed a little puzzling to him.

Then again, there were the attacks to consider.

Burke had filled him on those after Victoria had asked about the girl they had found and brought to Collinwood. She'd mentioned the attacks and the "strange" things happening around Collinsport, and Frank's curiosity had been piqued. Before he'd arrived, Burke hadn't said anything to him about any attacks.

After Dr. Woodard had examined the girl and Elizabeth had helped her upstairs to rest, he'd asked Burke about what Victoria had said.

Frank had to admit, the recent stories _were_ strange. Local young women turning up with two tiny wounds on their throats. Livestock with the same wounds drained entirely of blood. A girl disappearing after being pronounced dead at the hospital only to turn up on the beach and die upon her return to it - a girl who had also had the two marks on her neck.

Frank suggested a wild animal to account for the wounds, but Burke had said that they had been through that possibility already and that there were no such animals in Collinsport.

Burke insisted that it had to be a man.

A _man_.

That was most certainly a chilling prospect. It was almost enough to cause Frank to question his decision to remain in the area for longer than he'd planned. The city was looking safer by the minute with the way things appeared to be around the little fishing village. There were certainly plenty of madmen in the city, but he'd never yet heard of one beastly enough to commit the violent acts that were being committed in Collinsport.

The idea that the pretty young woman that he and Burke had found could've been the victim of such a….man….made him feel sick.

But the girl, Josette - as she'd called herself - seemed unharmed, with the exception of her amnesia. There were no marks on her neck, and Dr. Woodard said she was in good health despite whatever traumatic experience that had caused her amnesia.

Josette….

Frank wondered if that was her real name. She'd seemed rather sure of it on the beach, but for her to be unable to recall anything else… Still, Dr. Woodard seemed to believe that it was possible for her to retain something, some memory. Her name was the most likely possibility out of the many. He'd said it was possible that her name really was Josette.

Josette wasn't a common name, at least that he was aware of. If that was her name, it would probably be easier to discover her full identity and where she was from.

He had thought of her as he drove away from Collinwood and he was still thinking of her. He didn't understand what it was about her, he'd never felt so drawn to someone before. He couldn't get her out of his thoughts, her face out of his mind, or her voice from his memory.

He realized that he was attracted to her and shook his head.

_She has no memory! __Why couldn't I have met someone I actually stood a chance with?_

He'd just finished a long, exasperated sigh when he became aware that someone was knocking loudly on his door. He was unsurprised to see Burke standing in the hall when he opened it, his hand outstretched in preparation to knock again.

"For a minute I thought you'd gone to bed, at, oh… " Burke glanced at his watch, "seven o'clock in the evening."

"No, of course I'm still up," Frank muttered with a small grin. He stepped aside to let Burke enter the room. "What brings you by? I didn't expect to see you again until tomorrow."

"Vicki wasn't up for going out tonight, so I thought we could catch up. We didn't get much of a chance to earlier," Burke answered, "And, well, I thought you might be interested to know that I told Elizabeth I would see what I could find out about the girl, Josette."

"Oh?" Frank tried his best to seem uninterested, but he could tell by Burke's amused expression that he'd failed miserably.

"That's all you have to say about it? Come on, Frank, you're taken with her. I could tell just by the way you looked at her up at Collinwood."

"I'm not denying it," Frank spread his hands in surrender. "But there isn't much I can do about it, is there? She's not in any position for me to act on my feelings. It wouldn't do any good to pursue her..."

The disappointment in his voice was palpable.

Burke gave him an almost sympathetic glance. "You said it, not me. Why don't you give it time, see how it goes…see what I find out?"

Frank nodded. "Keep me updated?"

"I will," Burke assured him. "I'm going to get on it first thing tomorrow morning. It shouldn't take too long, especially if her name really is Josette. That isn't a common name these days. But…" Burke paused and frowned. Frank suspected what was on his mind.

"You don't think she's from around here?" he guessed.

"Do you?" Burke questioned, then shrugged. "It will be easy for me to find that out for certain, but I don't think she is. In fact, I'm almost positive that she isn't. Given that no one's heard of another local girl disappearing recently, one could assume she doesn't live in Collinsport. But Frank, the thing that really confuses me is her dress. Do you remember it?"

"Sure. It was long and white…." Frank pictured the dress in his mind. "It actually seemed very old fashioned now that I think about it. When I first saw her I thought it was strange, but I dismissed it at the time because of the situation."

"No one dresses that way," Burke stated.

"No, not today," Frank acknowledged. "The dress seemed like something a woman would wear years ago. In fact, I would place the style of the dress at least a century and a half old, if not more."

"It certainly is odd."

"You know what else is odd?" Frank brought up with sudden remembrance. "Did you notice the slightest hint of an accent in her voice?"

"An accent?" Burke narrowed his eyes in contemplation. "Now that you mention it, I think she does have a faint one. French, possibly."

"Possibly," Frank echoed, thinking of her name.

Josette was a name of French origin. The accent would certainly make sense, if Josette was her true name.

But he couldn't make sense out of that dress. Even if he and Burke sat in his cramped little hotel room all night and tried to think of plausible explanations for the dress, he knew they would come up empty.

* * *

She had taken to thinking of herself as Josette. 

She had no other name and it had seemed so right to her that she knew it would have been futile to attempt to choose a different one for herself.

She stood in front of the mirror in the bedroom Elizabeth Stoddard had made up for her, and ran a brush absently through the curls of her hair. The brown haired girl, Victoria, had lent her a nightgown and robe and she had already changed into them, but she could not bring herself to go to bed. She had slept so much during the day that there was no possible way that she would be able to fall asleep.

She had felt strange when she'd awakened. She wondered if she had dreamed and somehow not remembered it.

Had she dreamed of the life she had no memory of?

She sighed softly to herself, set the brush down on the dresser and went to stand near the window. She could see the distant outline of trees in the darkness. She thought of how large the Collins estate was. Elizabeth's daughter, Carolyn, had told her that Collinwood was not the only house on the property. There was a small cottage and another mansion that Carolyn referred to as the "Old House", where a cousin of the family lived. But as her eyes searched the night, she saw no trace of the other two buildings, only thick, seemingly endless woods.

Carefully, she opened the window and let the night air brush her face.

There was a knock on her door and she turned, surprised. It was nearly midnight, she had assumed that everyone had retired for the evening.

When she opened the door, a bright eyed Carolyn Stoddard greeted her.

Apparently, she was not the only one who was unable to sleep. She smiled politely and nodded for Carolyn to come in.

Though she looked very different from her dark haired mother, Carolyn was pretty, with shoulder length blonde hair and bright blue eyes. She had at first thought Victoria to be Elizabeth's daughter. She had been surprised to discover that Victoria had no relation to the Collins family, and was instead David's governess.

"I was afraid I would wake you," Carolyn admitted as she stepped into the room with a grin. "I'm glad to have another night owl around. The only other one in the family lives at the Old House."

Carolyn sat down on her bed and she moved to sit beside her.

"I cannot thank your family enough for letting me stay here." She felt her eyes water against her will. "I don't know where I would have gone."

"You really don't remember anything?" Carolyn asked curiously.

She shook her head, no.

"How horrible! I can't imagine how awful it must be for you, to not remember your family and friends, or if you had someone special in your life, and…" Carolyn stopped suddenly and flushed. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said those things. I'm sure you're having a hard time of it as it is and all I'm doing is reminding you."

"It's alright," she assured Carolyn softly. "It's nothing I've not thought of already. Earlier, after I'd awakened again, I thought of those things. What if my family was worried for me? What if they were searching for me? I wear no ring, but what if there was someone in my life? Someone I loved?"

The tears threatened to fall and she quickly brushed a hand under her eyes to catch them. She did not want to fall apart in front of Carolyn. It would do no good.

"It will get better," Carolyn offered, "and maybe you'll remember with time. But if not, I'm glad to have some company here. Collinwood gets lonely sometimes, even with the family here. I think Vicki's glad to have another girl here, too."

"Thank you," she repeated, genuinely grateful that Carolyn was willing to accept her so easily. She was touched that they would take her in and treat her as one of their own when she was no more than a stranger to them.

Carolyn clapped her hands together. "I almost forgot why I came in! Mother suggested that I take you shopping tomorrow. You can't very well borrow Vicki's clothes all the time, you'll need some of your own. And I would very much like to do that. It's been too long since I've spent the day shopping. It would be so much fun."

"I would like that," she admitted.

It was true.

It would not bring her memory back, or ease the ache in her heart for whatever it was that she had lost, but perhaps it would distract her for awhile. She didn't want to keep borrowing Victoria's clothes, even though she also did not think it right for the family to give so much to her, though they would hardly let her refuse.

"You'll also have to go to the Old House and meet my cousin," Carolyn said excitedly. "Perhaps in a few days you'll feel up to it. I've only been to see it once since Cousin Barnabas started restoring it. He's usually out during the day, so we would have to wait until the evening. But I do think you should meet him. He's such a fascinating man. And not at all boringly normal like some others in town."

_Barnabas…_

She had only half heartedly paid attention to the rest of what Carolyn was saying when she had heard the name. For a moment, as the name slipped from Carolyn's lips she felt something stir within her. Not in her mind, the way she would have hoped, but somewhere else….

Somewhere deeper….

It was gone as quickly as it had come, and she was once again left empty.

Not only empty, but colder somehow…

"Barnabas."

She was not aware that she had said the name aloud until Carolyn grinned and nodded.

"Barnabas Collins. It's funny, really. He's named after a descendent of ours that lived in the late seventeen hundreds. I normally don't find stories like that so intriguing, but we have a portrait of that Barnabas downstairs in the foyer. Well, our Barnabas looks exactly like the one in the painting. It really is uncanny, you would think they were the same man."

Long after Carolyn had left her room, she remained awake.

She was reading a book she had found in one of the drawers when she first heard the sound of a dog howling in the distance.

She placed the book on the small wooden table by the bed and approached the open window. She must have forgotten to close it earlier when Carolyn had come in. If she had closed it, it was unlikely that she would have heard the plaintive cry at all.

It continued to howl low and mournfully as though it were very sad, very lost, and utterly alone.

The sound should have frightened her, but instead, it soothed her. She leaned against the window frame, closed her eyes, and listened to its requiem.

It was almost as if it had come from her own soul.


	4. Shadows of the Past

TrudiRose, thanks for the reviews and comments! It has occurred to me that a few Collins family members would recognize her resemblance to Josette, and I plan on addressing it in upcoming chapters. David makes an appearance in the next one and he's likely going to be drawn to her throughout this story because of his fascination with Josette Collins. Willie's one of my favorite DS characters, and even though this a Barnabas and Josette story, I consider him to be a main character. He plays an important part. I also love writing him. :) This part is more like an interlude than a full chapter...

* * *

**Chapter 3: _Shadows of the Past_**

With the taste of blood still lingering in his mouth, Barnabas silently stalked through the cemetery on Eagle Hill from the Collins mausoleum.

His family's final resting place.

His own tomb for one hundred and seventy-two years.

His father, his mother, his sister…all were resting inside of its stone walls.

Over a century had passed since he had last seen them, but he remembered them as vividly as if it had only been mere days ago instead of years.

He remembered the expression on Joshua Collins's face when he learned that his only son had become one of the living dead. The pain, the anger, the torment etched upon his father's normally cold, reserved features as Barnabas had declared himself no longer his son. He remembered his mother's horror at discovering what his father had already known and the feeling of her weight in his arms as she died from the poison that she had downed before coming to the tower room to confront him with her knowledge.

Perhaps the most agonizing memory of them all was of Sarah, his sweet, innocent little Sarah, sick from the night's air and dying a slow death in her bed, only remaining in the world of the living long enough to place herself in her brother's arms at the last moment. He could still hear her promise weakly that she would always love him. He could still feel her long hair beneath his fingertips as he pressed her cold body against him. He could still see the doll that he had fixed for her laying beside them on her bed.

But it was not only his family's death that haunted him - Josette's death would remain with him forever.

The way she had stared at him with pure terror in her eyes before she had turned and ran in the direction of Widows' Hill. Her hysterical crying as he pursued her through the woods. Her scream as she had fallen, the sound of her body breaking on the rocks below the cliff. He had lifted her body into his arms and held her to him, unable to believe that she was dead, that she had chosen death over a life with him. No matter how unforgivably dark their life would have been, he had truly believed that it would not matter to her, that she wanted to be with him despite the cost.

Her dress had been torn, her beautiful face battered where it had impacted the jagged edges on the rocks.

She was limp, lifeless, but still so lovely.

And she was gone.

He had spent hours cradling her on those rocks, pleading with her to return to him before he had finally let her body go.

But he had not let _her_ go.

That was something he could never do.

His curse brought others the death that he had once wished for himself, but Barnabas Collins remained, forever walking in its darkened shadow.

The night cloaked him - no one would have seen him had they been in the cemetery, but very few people wandered through the ancient headstones that lay at his feet.

Josette's grave was amongst them, surrounded by the others.

The forgotten.

Josette would never be forgotten.

He would never forget her.

Despite his desire to reach his destination, he slowed his pace, and thought of someone that had recently been buried. Someone who had not been meant for the finality of death. Someone that could have brought Josette back to him, had she only been worthy enough.

Maggie Evans.

When he had seen her in the window of the coffee shop, it was as if Josette herself had been returned to him. He would have given her anything she desired, had she ceased to be the simple Maggie Evans and become his Josette. She had refused him, betrayed him, and attempted to escape him. Then she had died.

Again, Josette had fled from him.

Again, their love had ended in death.

She could have been his bride. Josette was destined to become his bride. They had been destined for only a life of happiness spent together as husband and wife. That destiny was forever altered and had been cruelly taken away from them by Angelique.

Wicked, wretched Angelique.

There was no warmth left in his veins, but if rage had been a tangible thing, his blood would have burned with it.

_Angelique, how I wish you were here on this night so that I could kill you once more._

He could still feel her slim throat in his hands as he strangled her beside the coffin that she had damned him to. He could still feel the warmth of her last breath on his face.

She had suffered so little and then knew no more. Her death had been quick, with only the briefest of pain.

He had suffered for one hundred and seventy-two years as he had been trapped inside of his chained coffin. The cross attached to the inner lining of the lid had prevented him from moving even in the slightest of way. He had dreaded each night, for he woke from death's sleep to his tiny prison until the sunlight came and then oblivion would descend upon him once more. Oblivion. He had craved it in that coffin more than he had craved the blood that sustained him. There he had remained until he had been freed by a man who had planned to rob his mother's grave, and was now forced to feed upon the living once more to survive in the only sanctuary left for him: the darkness.

His "cousins" had welcomed him with open arms, never knowing that each night they spoke with the man who was responsible for the attacks on the local young women in town. They invited him for brandy, never knowing that for weeks he returned to the Old House to be with the missing Maggie Evans, who for a very brief time had been his Josette. He, the very same man whose portrait adorned the foyer wall.

They could never know what their cousin truly was and he would see to it that they never would.

He would find his Josette again.

He would find a woman worthy to be her and then he would spend eternity with her beside him.

Death meant nothing. It would not stop him. He could not let it. If he did, Josette would be forever barred from him and he would be forever alone.

_I cannot exist without you, Josette._

Sadness washed over him like the waves that had crashed against the rocks that had killed her on that night so many years ago……

_I do not know how._

Jeremiah's grave finally stood in front of his feet and he looked upon it with hatred and bitterness. Josette had been buried beside her husband and Barnabas had tortured himself with the sight of it on the first nights after she had been placed in the ground.

Her husband.

His uncle.

The man who had been a brother to him.

He knew that it was not truly Jeremiah that had taken Josette from him. Jeremiah was not responsible for the wedding that had broken his heart so utterly, just as Josette was not to blame. It was all Angelique. Angelique had placed one of her spells upon them and made them marry, made them betray him.

Still, he could never bring himself to forgive Jeremiah.

Jeremiah had been Josette's husband.

Jeremiah had exchanged vows with her, given her the name that Barnabas had promised her.

Jeremiah had made love to her.

He turned from Jeremiah's grave to face Josette's, unable to bear the sight of it any longer. An involuntary gasp escaped his lips. The hand that held his cane began to shake as he gripped the silver wolf's head so tightly that it could have bent beneath his supernatural strength.

He did not care, nor would he have noticed.

_Josette's grave!_

The headstone that he had read so many times was gone. There was no sign that it had ever been there. There was no depression in the earth, no loose soil to suggest it had been removed. It was if the ground beneath his feet no longer contained the remnants of her, and the sight sent him crumbling to the ground.

Even her body, the shell of what was once her beauty and grace, had been mysteriously taken from him.

She was truly gone.

_How? _

Why?

Had anyone been in the cemetery, they would have heard a man's heart wrenching moan.

In the distance, in the mansion on Widows' Hill, one young woman was haunted by the sound of a dog howling in the night.


	5. Reflections

**Chapter 4 : _Reflections_**

The sun shown brightly in the sky as Josette and Carolyn left Collinwood for an afternoon walk on the grounds. It spread its warmth over Josette's skin and invited her into its beaming tranquility.

The walk had been Carolyn's suggestion and it was a welcome one. Before Carolyn had entered her room, she had been sitting absently on her bed, her mind tangled in her thoughts of the past she couldn't remember. As soon as she had opened her eyes in the morning, she had been consumed by the need to remember _something_.

Anything.

She had known the chance was not very good that she would remember everything within a few days. The doctor, Dr. Woodard, had said it was a possibility, but it was only a remote possibility. Still, for the sake of her own sanity, she had clung to the tiny hope that one day she would wake from her night's slumber and remember the life she had forgotten so suddenly.

That tiny hope within her had the power to crush her completely when she realized that she would not remember on the whim of a bright, pleasant morning.

A morning that she had just experienced.

"It certainly is a wonderful day," Carolyn said brightly, unknowing of Josette's thoughts. "One has to take advantage of a day like this in Collinsport. We don't get them all that often. The sun's so warm."

"It makes everything seem so peaceful," Josette observed quietly. "So calm and serene." She gave Carolyn a smile, her sadness lifting a bit. It began to drift away and hide behind the distraction of the comforting, beautiful day. "And bright."

"Definitely bright," Carolyn agreed with a grin. She gestured in the direction that they had come from. "It even has the ability to make Collinwood appear less gloomy and forbidding than usual."

"What makes you say that about Collinwood?" Josette inquired, genuinely curious at Carolyn's words.

"You have to admit, Collinwood has a rather…unapproachable air. It's my home, but I would be lying if I said I don't have moments when the atmosphere overwhelms me. You know, a lot of people in town would insist that it's haunted. I have to admit, it does bear the right visage."

"Haunted?" Josette repeated, turning her head to glance back at the mansion in the distance. "I suppose if one believes in ghosts, Collinwood would seem to be a likely place to find them," she admitted.

"I don't really believe in it," Carolyn shrugged. "Though I'll confess to getting afraid during storms, especially ones that occur during the night. When the lights go out in Collinwood, it can sometimes be terrifying."

"I'm sure that can be said for almost anyone in any house," Josette assured her, taking in the woods around her. The trees were so thick that she could see nothing beyond them, even during the day. She wondered how close the other mansion, the Old House, was from where they walked.

"Would you describe the Old House the same as you did Collinwood?"

Carolyn nodded vigorously and laughed. "Absolutely. More so in fact. Before Barnabas moved in the whole place was rather creepy. It hadn't been touched for over a hundred years and the outside and inside looked appropriately frightful and desolate. It made Collinwood appear positively cheerful in comparison. In a lot of ways, it still does, even with Barnabas living there."

"But you said it has been restored on the inside," she reminded Carolyn. "Surely it no longer seems that way."

"Oh, Barnabas has done wonderful things to it, don't get me wrong. But it still seems rather…well, dark. Barnabas wants it to be the same way it was in the past, down to the last detail. When you walk through the doors it's almost like stepping back in time. That helps give it that darkness, I think. That haunted feeling. And well, to be honest, Barnabas himself seems suited for the dark. He's very melancholy and I think he's very much a romantic. The night seems to hold a special meaning for him. He's so in tune with the romanticism of the past, the house seems perfect for him. But he's so very much a gentlemen, it's unbelievable. We're all extremely fond of him."

Josette frowned thoughtfully, imagining Barnabas Collins as Carolyn had described him. It seemed wrong to her somehow, though she had never met him, seen him.

Wrong and -

_frightening._

Carolyn placed a hand on her arm so suddenly that it startled her. She realized that Carolyn had stopped walking and was standing very still, staring ahead.

"What is it?"

Carolyn shook her head and tucked a stray strand of blonde hair behind her ear. "I'm not sure we should go any farther."

"Why?" Josette asked, confused.

"We're nearing Eagle Hill. It's an old cemetery on the grounds. It's abandoned now, except for the caretaker that watches over the graves. No one has been buried there for years. It's very large. The first Collins family has a mausoleum there."

"We can turn back if you would like to," Josette said.

An ancient cemetery was hardly a place one should visit on such lovely day.

She gazed in the direction of the cemetery and realized she could just make out the beginnings of the headstones that stood on the ground, the only remaining sign that the people that slept beneath the earth had ever existed above it.

Those people seemed to call to her, plead with her to walk among them, that she was obligated to visit them.

_I want to go into the cemetery. I feel I need to._

But why?

"No, that's all right. It's still early and I don't really want to go back to Collinwood just yet. Besides, I'm being silly. There's nothing to be afraid of."

It seemed to Josette that Carolyn was trying to convince herself of that, but she said nothing. Secretly, she was relieved that Carolyn was willing to go through the cemetery.

_Why? _

_Maybe I've walked through it before…before I lost my memory. Maybe that's why I feel so compelled to walk through it now. That has to be it. It has to be!_

_But how could I have been there before? I have never been to Collinwood, and it is on the Collins estate! _

_It's not possible for me to have been there..._

They went forward in companionable silence at first, but Carolyn animatedly began telling Josette more about the Collins family and some of the people in town. Though it was rude of her, she was not entirely listening to Carolyn's words. She doubted she could recall a single detail out of the many that Carolyn spoke of as they stepped deeper and deeper into the cemetery.

She was distracted by the stones and the names and dates engraved on each one.

As she passed there was one in particular with the date of seventeen ninety-five that seemed to beckon to her. She assumed that the reason was simply because of the name.

It was Collins.

Jeremiah Collins.

"Carolyn," she interrupted her new friend's somewhat forlorn description of a man named Joe Haskell, nodding her head toward the old grave. "Was he related to your family?"

Carolyn paused and looked at the marked headstone. "Oh, yes. He was part of the original Collins family. Though I've never understood why he was buried out here and not in the mausoleum. He was the brother of the head of the family. He held quite a title, all things considered."

"Jeremiah Collins…" Josette murmured. "Jeremiah…"

Hesitantly, she reached out with her hand and touched the cold stone, allowing her fingers to brush over the carved letters that formed the man's name. As she did so, she felt a chill come over her for a moment, but then it quickly faded.

"What is it? You seem upset." Carolyn had obviously noticed her reaction to the grave.

"I'm not sure…but for a moment, there was something about that name," Josette confessed. She took her hand away from the headstone and turned to Carolyn in confusion.

"Maybe you knew someone named Jeremiah," Carolyn suggested with a smile, as they continued walking. "It could be a sign that you're starting to remember."

"Maybe," Josette said.

Even as she hoped that it was true, she knew that it was not. No memory had returned to her, no face to go along with the name.

There had only been the brief chill…

"Ahh, here we are." Carolyn pointed grimly ahead of her. "The Collins mausoleum. I haven't been here in years."

A wrought iron gate stood atop stone steps in front of them and Josette stared at it in unease. The gate opened with a whine as she and Carolyn carefully stepped into the tomb of the first Collins family.

The air was thick and musty to her, the atmosphere in the enclosed area suffocating. Three plain wooden coffins lay side by side in front of them. There were names etched into the walls above each one, but it was the name above the third coffin that captured Josette's startled attention.

"Sarah Collins." The dates underneath the name surprised and saddened her. "She was only a child!"

Carolyn nodded. "If I remember right, not much is known about her other than that she died when she was very young. She was the sister of the original Barnabas. Of course, he would have been buried here as well if he hadn't gone to England and started the English branch of the family."

The sister of Barnabas….

_Barnabas's sister._

_Barnabas…_

The stone walls seemed to shrink around her and a searing pain suddenly made itself present inside of her head. She brought her hand to her temple and closed her eyes tightly, reaching out and placing her free hand on Carolyn's arm to steady herself.

"Josette, what is it? Josette!"

She heard Carolyn's concerned voice and managed to open her eyes. The pain in her head faded but did not completely disappear. She was left feeling weak and slightly dizzy.

"My head started hurting terribly," she managed in a soft voice. "The pain isn't so prominent now, but I'm starting to feel ill…."

"We'd better head back to Collinwood so you can rest. Maybe you've had too much activity over the past couple of days. I should have thought of that before we started walking. We shouldn't have walked so much," Carolyn said worriedly. "It was probably too soon."

Josette parted her lips to assure Carolyn that she had felt fine earlier, but decided not to protest their return to Collinwood. Carolyn was right. Returning to Collinwood was the safest option. Still, she wanted to make sure that Carolyn held no guilt for what had happened to her. They'd had no way of knowing that it would happen.

"This was not your fault, Carolyn. I should have considered the consequences. The doctor warned me, but I paid him little attention because I've felt fine until now," Josette assured her firmly, as they made their way out of the cemetery and back through the woods.

Though she felt weak and almost nauseated, the pain in her head continued to lessen as they reached Collinwood.

Once in her room, she lowered herself onto the bed and lay on her side. She curled up on its soft mattress and closed her eyes, trying to will herself to fall asleep, but it was to no avail. She was not tired in the least and her mind raced with questions to which she had no answers.

What had caused the sudden, horrible headache? She had felt perfectly fine all afternoon until she and Carolyn had been standing in the Collins mausoleum. Dr. Woodard had assured her that nothing was wrong with her other than her unexplainable loss of memory.

Could it have been the result of a memory attempting to resurface from the deep recesses of her mind?

If it had been, Josette was not at all sure that she wanted to remember it. Perhaps it was better left buried somewhere inside of herself. The pain had been excruciating. For a moment, it was all she could do not collapse under the pressing weight of it and fall to the cold ground beside the three coffins.

She had said nothing of it to Carolyn, but as Carolyn had led her out of the darkened mausoleum, she'd felt an immediate sense of relief as the rays of the sun shown brightly down on her. It was almost as if she had been suffocating and could finally breathe easily again.

It all made her wonder what kind of life she had led before her memories had been lost to her. She desired more than anything to remember - over the last couple of days, she had thought of almost nothing else.

But was she better off not knowing?

She rose slowly from the bed and opened a small drawer under the vanity. She carefully lifted the soft white material that had been folded inside, freeing it from the confines of the drawer.

It was the dress that she had been wearing when Frank and Burke found her.

She held it in her hands and stepped in front of the full length mirror that stood in one corner of her new bedroom. She placed the dress in front of her body and gazed thoughtfully at her reflection in the mirror.

No one at Collinwood seemed to wear anything similar to it. Carolyn, Victoria, and Mrs. Stoddard's clothes held no resemblance to the style of her dress. Yet she knew that if she put it on, she would not want take it off. She felt comfortable in the dress.

She ran her hand over the bodice of the dress and down its floor length skirts, wishing that she had other dresses similiar to it.

She would have stayed in front of the mirror all evening if the soft knock had not sounded on her door. She reluctantly spread the dress out on her bed and opened it.

A boy stood there, and when he saw her, his eyes widened in what seemed like amazement.

"You must be David Collins," Josette said with a soft smile when she realized that he was not going to be the first to speak.

David Collins was one of the few members of the family that she had not yet met, but Carolyn had given her a decidedly detailed description of her young cousin.

"Is there something wrong?" she asked with concern. He continued to stare at her with wide eyes and in some sort of fascination that she did not understand.

He looked down at the ground suddenly and shifted as though he were nervous. When he raised his eyes to meet hers, she received the impression that he was inwardly debating with himself over what to say to her.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to stare the way I did. For a minute, I mistook you for someone else," he told her. "I'm David."

"It's nice to finally meet you, David," she greeted. "I'm Josette."

"Oh, I know. Aunt Elizabeth said you were going to be staying here for awhile. Is that true?" His grin grew just slightly and his eyes lit up with an excitement that almost made her laugh.

Carolyn had described him as "a little terror sometimes", but he seemed quite normal to her.

"It is, at least for a little while," she confirmed. "I have nowhere else to go."

David's grin fell from his face and a frown replaced it. "You really don't remember anything about yourself?"

"No." She shook her head. "Nothing at all, I'm afraid."

"How sad," David commented seriously. "That must be hard for you, to not remember anything."

"It is, but your family has done so much for me. It makes it easier when one has people like them to care."

"Well, I hope you'll be here, I'd like to get to know you. I've been interested in meeting you ever since Aunt Elizabeth told me you were going to stay here, but I was told that it wouldn't good to visit you right away, that you needed to rest."

Again, Josette got the impression that he wanted to say something more, but he caught sight of the dress laying across the top of her bed and became transfixed.

"I've never seen a dress like that…not at Collinwood. Is it yours?"

She stepped to the side and allowed him to go over to the dress and study it.

"Yes, it is mine. It was what I was wearing when I was found."

"That's so odd…" David said in a quiet voice, then turned to her with a shrug. "I mean, the dress seems very old fashioned, that's is all."

Old fashioned…

Josette was not sure if that was how she would describe her dress.

"Oh, I'd better tell you why I came. Dinner is almost ready and Aunt Elizabeth wanted see if you felt up to coming downstairs and eating with us."

"I would like that." She smiled at him. "Will you tell her I will be down in a few moments?"

"Sure!" David grinned, then after taking one last look at her dress, he left.

Josette could not help but be warmed by his infectious enthusiasm. He genuinely seemed to like her, even though they had just met. She wondered what he had wanted to say, but had chosen not to.

Perhaps he would tell her eventually.

With a sigh, she glanced longingly at the dress, then went over to her vanity to fix her hair into a more presentable style. The ribbon that she had used to pull it away from her face had come undone and several loose curls had fell forward. She removed the ribbon from her hair and set it on the vanity's surface. Then with sure hands she carefully crafted the top of layer of her hair into crown on her head, then replaced the ribbon and tied it securely in place.

She stared into the mirror with confused satisfaction.

The hairstyle that she had just created should have been much more complicated than it had been for her to achieve. She must have worn her hair in the style before….

_I have many times._

Her reflection appeared so much more familiar to her in that moment. It was almost like she was looking at a different young woman. A young woman who was a bit more confident. Someone who at least knew who she wanted to be and what she wanted. Through the mirror, she could see the white dress on her bed.

_If I put it on now, could I possibly remember? _

_Oh, how silly of me. Of course such a simple action of putting on a dress would not help me regain my memories. I must let them go for now. _

_I must._

Determinedly, she rose from the vanity and without once gazing back at the dress that David had called "old fashioned", she left her room to dine with the Collins family.

* * *

"Did you ask Josette if she would like to come down for dinner?" Elizabeth inquired, catching sight of David standing in the foyer, starting up at the portrait of the eighteenth century Barnabas. 

He didn't respond to her question, nor did he turn.

Had he not heard her?

"David?" she called to him. "David, are you all right?"

He spun to face her so suddenly that it startled both of them.

"I'm sorry, Aunt Elizabeth. I wasn't paying attention. I didn't hear you," David apologized in a guilt ridden tone.

"I can see that, David," Elizabeth said with a smile. "I asked you about Josette."

"She said she would come down," David told her.

"That's good. I hope she's feeling better… David, you didn't mention to her what we discussed earlier today, did you?"

"Oh, no," David answered with a pout. "You told me not to. But it was so hard not to, Aunt Elizabeth! She looks so much like Josette Collins!"

He turned away from her and gazed again at the portrait of Barnabas.

"In fact, it was almost like I was talking to Josette Collins when I was with her. I felt the same with her as I did in the Old House before Cousin Barnabas moved in. I felt like Josette's presence was nearby. And the dress…"

David drifted off, lost in his thoughts of the ancestor that Elizabeth knew he was so fascinated with.

She closed the short distance between them and placed a hand on his shoulder to regain his attention.

"David, I realize that she does resemble our ancestor Josette, but you must realize that she isn't really Josette Collins. I'll admit, I find it a very odd coincidence that she looks so much like her and that she thinks her own name is Josette, but that's all it is - a coincidence. Josette Collins lived long ago. She is an unfortunate young woman that's very lost right now. I didn't think it would be a good idea to mention our ancestor to her, especially after what happened today while she and Carolyn were out walking. She has been through too much, and we mustn't do or say anything that might upset or confuse her."

"I understand," David sighed.

Elizabeth smiled affectionately. "I'm glad that you do. Now, why don't you tell me why were you staring so intently at the painting of the original Barnabas Collins?"

"I was just thinking, that's all," David said. "Now we have two people that look like they stepped right out of the family's past. Cousin Barnabas and Josette…. I wonder what Barnabas will think of her if he meets her."

"I'm sure he'll meet her in a few days, after all, I've assured her that she's welcome to stay here. And I think he'll like her."

Elizabeth gave him another smile and went in search of Mrs. Johnson in the hope that dinner had been prepared.

She didn't see the frown that crossed David's face, or hear his words in the empty foyer as he gave one last stare to the portrait on the wall. And there would have been no possible way for her to hear his thoughts.

"I think he'll like her too. In fact, I'm sure he will. But I wonder how she'll feel about him…"

_Josette's ghost always seemed sad, like he seemed the night I met him, but she seemed different the last time…it was like she was afraid of something. _

_Afraid of him…_


	6. The Storm Approaches

**Chapter 5 : _The Storm Approaches_**

"I might as well come with you to Collinwood, seeing as you said you only want to talk to Mrs. Stoddard for a few minutes. It would be silly for us to meet back at the inn if you aren't going to be there long."

Frank knew he sounded reasonable, but reason didn't have much do with his willingness to accompany Burke to Collinwood that evening and he knew that his friend was fully aware of that.

"And you'll get a chance to see Josette," Burke added with a wry grin. "Come on Frank, I know you enough not to buy into any excuses."

"Alright," Frank surrendered. "I want to see Josette. It isn't as if I'm planning anything, I just want to see how she's doing."

Burke shook his head. "Frank, are you sure you aren't just torturing yourself? I know that she's been on your mind for the past few days. I know you're interested in her, but you also said you weren't going to make anything of it this soon because of her past."

"And I meant that," Frank assured him. "I just want to see how she's doing, maybe talk to her. That's all, Devlin. I swear."

_Oh, who am I trying to convince? I'm certainly not convincing myself, that's for sure._

"Whatever you say."

Burke's amusement was clear, but Frank ignored it. He wasn't going to go back on his decision to not involve himself with Josette, at least not yet. He knew that it was wrong to hope for a relationship with her, given her situation. Hell, for all he knew there had been another man in her life and there would be again, if she ever regained her memories.

He could expect no different.

_I can only hope…_

"Have you found out anything yet? Anything about her identity?"

"I've got the best people I know working on it, but so far, they haven't come up with anything. That's locally, mind you. If they can't come up with anything here in Collinsport, then I'll have them broaden their search as much as it takes to come up with something. The girl had to exist before we found her on those rocks and I'm confident that eventually something will turn up."

"I thought maybe you had discovered something and that you were holding out on me. I figured you might be going to Collinwood to speak to Mrs. Stoddard about what you found. But obviously that has nothing to do with your need to speak to her, so what's this all about?"

It was Burke's turn to be evasive. "There's something I need to discuss with her. It's nothing important."

"Nothing important? I beg to differ. I'm sure it has something to do with Victoria, so it definitely has to be important," Frank teased him. He took a moment to enjoy turning the tables on Burke.

But Burke didn't bother to deny that Frank was right. He nodded his head and gave him a look that Frank had rarely seen on his face until he'd come to Collinsport. It was a look of almost….happiness.

"I'm planning on asking Vicki to marry me," Burke said bluntly. "Vicki saw an old house a little ways out of town that she really liked and she took me to see it. The way her face lit up Frank, well it was a sight. I never counted on wanting to settle down before, or do something so mundane as to buy a house and plan to live in it with someone else, but when I was in that house with Vicki, I couldn't help but picture the two of us living in it together. And it was a pleasing picture to me. I love her and I want to marry her," Burke paused, as if he couldn't quite believe he'd said those words. "Liz Stoddard owns the property that the house is on, so she's the one I have to see if I want to buy it for Vicki."

"Incredible, hearing you say all that," Frank smiled. "Congratulations."

"Don't congratulate me yet, I don't know if Vicki will agree," Burke cautioned, his expression turned slightly troubled. "I've never brought it up with her before."

"I think she will," Frank said. He hadn't spent much time with Victoria yet, but when he watched them together it was obvious that they were happy together. He wished them all the best, even if he was more than a little envious of his friend's sudden and unexpected bliss.

"I hope so. I can't imagine not having Vicki in my life now that she's become so much a part of it."

As they headed to Collinwood, both were filled with their own separate anticipation.

The knowledge that he might see Josette again made Frank heart beat a little faster.

For a moment, he allowed himself to wonder if there was a chance that one day, eventually, he could be thinking of marriage, of asking the right girl to marry him.

He allowed himself to wonder if there was a chance for that girl to be Josette.

* * *

"It looks like it's going to storm tonight. I just hope that the power doesn't go out. Candles hardly provide enough light in a place like this," Carolyn said with a frustrated sigh. She stepped away from the windows in the drawing room and turned to Josette, who was seated on the couch, staring thoughtfully at the portrait above the fireplace. 

She removed her gaze from the portrait and looked to Carolyn sheepishly. She had become distracted by the painting, though she had heard Carolyn's comment.

"Perhaps it will not storm," she suggested, more for Carolyn's benefit than her own. Her new friend seemed to be quite nervous of the possibility of a storm.

Carolyn's mention of candlelight captured Josette's attention as she envisioned the walls of Collinwood illuminated only by the flickering flames of candles.

The image it invoked in her mind appealed to her, though she was not sure why.

Before she could contemplate it further, Carolyn's voice drew her out of her thoughts.

"Maybe," Carolyn said with a shrug, then inclined her head in the direction of the portrait that Josette had been staring at moments ago. "You seemed awfully interested in that painting up there. You were staring so intently at it."

"I cannot help but stare. Do you know who he is?" Josette inquired, genuinely curious about the man.

There was something about him…

"Well of course I do, I wouldn't be a Collins if I didn't at least know that." Carolyn nodded to the painting. "That's Joshua Collins. I think I mentioned that he was the head of the first Collins family. He's in the mausoleum that we were in yesterday, with the little girl, Sarah."

Sarah…

A sadness settled over Josette as she thought of the little girl. A sadness that she found difficult to push away.

Her sadness went unnoticed by Carolyn, who focused on the portrait of Joshua Collins with a frown.

"He seems so intimidating," she observed, indicating the man the portrait depicted. "Look at how cold and aloof he appears."

Josette gazed at the age worn face, stern eyes and lips that were so thin that it made her wonder if they had always been set in a permanent frown. He had obviously been very wealthy, but she was positive that if a mere portrait was any indication, that he had not been very happy.

_"It really is uncanny. You would think they were the same man." _

Carolyn's words came back to her suddenly, along with the name of the man they had spoken of. The cousin from England. The one who resembled an ancestor.

Barnabas Collins.

_Barnabas…_

Carolyn abruptly turned to face her.

"Oh, I almost forgot! Burke called earlier and said he wanted to speak to Mother. I'd better go into the study and tell her before he arrives. I'll be right back, Josette."

Josette watched Carolyn hurry from the drawing room before she left it herself. She remembered Carolyn telling her that the portrait of Barnabas was in the foyer. She had forgotten about the portrait, though with everything that had happened she was not entirely surprised that she had.

Still, the portrait had intrigued her and it still did.

How she had not noticed it before, she did not know. It was the first sight that met her eyes when she stepped from the drawing room into the foyer. It was directly to the right of the double doors in an ornate gold frame.

_Barnabas._

She slowly made her way over to the portrait and stood close enough to it that she could reach out and brush her fingers over the canvas.

The 18th century Barnabas Collins was one of the most unique looking men she had seen that she could remember, and she did not doubt for a moment that even if she could recall every man that she had ever seen in her life, unique he would still remain.

He had lustrous black hair and a pensive, solemn face. His expression was not cold, like that of the older man's, yet there was something chilling about it just the same. But it was his eyes - those dark, fathomless eyes, that held her rapt fascination. It was as though he was staring through her, into her soul.

Such depth in those eyes, and it was only a portrait!

She shivered and thought of the cousin that Carolyn said looked so exceptionally like the man that had lived almost two centuries ago.

Were his eyes the same?

Such haunting eyes….

_Familiar eyes._

When she managed to avert her attention from his features, she noticed the highly detailed cane in his hands. It was silver, with what appeared to be a wolf's head designed into the handle. On one of those hands was a ring. It was elaborate and spoke of the same wealth that beset the man in the portrait above the drawing room mantelpiece. The ring itself was gold, but the large stone atop it was black. It was as unique as the man who had worn it on his finger.

Before she was even aware of her own actions, she walked over to the doors and opened them with the intent to go out into the night, to the Old House. It was only the sound of distant thunder that halted her steps.

_I cannot possibly go out tonight. It will surely storm and it would be terribly wrong for me to go to the Old House alone. _

Still, her desire to meet Barnabas Collins was suddenly very overwhelming.

And yet there was a small sense of relief inside of her, relief that she would not be able to go to the Old House.

_Why?

* * *

_

Carolyn knew that something was bothering Josette. She had become quiet since Carolyn had returned from the study. She seemed very distracted and somewhat upset.

Carolyn hadn't said anything, but she secretly hoped that Frank would be with Burke when he arrived. Someone needed to cheer Josette up and Carolyn wasn't having any luck. Frank had seemed to be able to calm her when he and Burke had brought her to Collinwood, and he had a disarming, lighthearted way about him, so that made sense.

Carolyn had been surprised by Frank. He was very different from Burke, or at least, the Burke that had returned to Collinsport to ruin the family. Burke currently seemed like a much different man than the one that had arrived in town a year ago. He was more content than she'd ever seen him.

She knew the person responsible for that was Victoria.

Carolyn had once been attracted to Burke Devlin and had been jealous of how much he obviously preferred Victoria. While she still thought Burke was quite a catch, she no longer harbored any ill feelings towards him or Victoria, at least not in the way she had in the beginning, though a bit of jealousy had existed when she saw how much Victoria cared for him because it made her realize that she had never truly felt that way about any man. Not even Joe.

She wondered if there had been someone in Josette's life, before whatever had befallen her and taken away her memories. She thought that maybe that was why Josette seemed sad sometimes. Perhaps there had been someone and even though she didn't remember, she still held onto the smallest hint of a feeling, left over from her forgotten past. Perhaps she felt lost not only because of her memory, but because she was separated from someone she had loved.

But that was too much to assume, Carolyn knew. If there was someone that Josette was unaware of missing, it could just as easily be a family member or a close friend.

Carolyn had to admit, she surprised herself by taking such a liking to Josette. They didn't really have much in common. Josette was very reserved, almost to the point of being formal. At times, she was shy and unsure, but Carolyn guessed those traits were caused by her loss of memory more than anything else because there were moments when Josette seemed very confident and composed. Regardless, it was refreshing to have someone in the house near her own age that she could spend time with. Victoria was always too busy with David to enjoy shopping at the mall or going out on the town.

Carolyn had certainly had a lot of fun taking Josette shopping and the whole experience had also been mysteriously amusing.

Carolyn had driven them in her car and Josette had sat stiffly in the passenger seat and kept anxiously looking around her as if she expected the vehicle to hurt her in some way. Carolyn knew that she wasn't the best driver in Collinsport, but she certainly wasn't that bad! Josette appeared almost frightened by the drive into the city. Once she'd managed to convince Josette to relax, her friend turned her attention to the window and became transfixed with the other cars on the road, and later at the towering buildings as they had reached the expansive mall that Carolyn loved.

Then once they had entered the mall, Josette had seemed utterly lost amongst the racks of clothes at the stores Carolyn visited regularly. She'd watched as her shopping partner for the day browsed through the dresses with wide eyes and a frequent flush coming over her face.

To Carolyn, Josette had acted like she had never seen every day dresses and skirts before!

Several times, Carolyn had gone into the dressing rooms to help Josette with all of the different outfits they had chosen. At one point, when Josette had donned a red sleeveless dress that ended just at her knees, she'd commented to Carolyn that she felt as if she were wearing nothing at all. Carolyn had informed her with a mischievous grin that there were much shorter dresses out there on the racks and Josette had promptly turned as red as her dress. Carolyn couldn't help it, she'd burst into laughter and Josette had slowly followed her, though her laughter was much more hesitant and nervous than Carolyn's own, as if she had still been considering that the fact that shorter dresses existed.

Though Josette had no memory, Carolyn would have bet all of the Collins money after that one shopping trip and ride in the car that Josette had led a very modest and _extremely _sheltered life before whatever accident had taken it away from her.

_The poor girl probably can't even drive!_

The knock on the door brought Carolyn out of her thoughts.

"I'll get it," she volunteered. "It's probably Burke."

Sure enough, when she opened the door it was Burke Devlin that greeted her, looking very handsome in a deep brown suit and matching tie. Behind him stood Frank Hamilton, as handsome as his friend in a casual charcoal gray ensemble that Carolyn thought fit him perfectly.

_Well, it can't hurt to look, can it?_

She gave them a welcoming smile and motioned them inside. Once they were in the foyer and she had taken their coats, all the while wondering where Mrs. Johnson had gone off to, she noticed Frank looking around like he was searching for something.

_Or someone._

_Well, well. _

Carolyn smirked to herself before directing Burke to the study. "Burke, Mother knows you were coming. She told me to send you right in."

"Thanks, Carolyn," he nodded to her, then turned to Frank. "I'll just be a few minutes."

"Take your time," Frank called to him.

"It must be pretty important, what he wants to see Mother about," Carolyn reasoned conversationally. "He doesn't usually make a habit of visiting members of my family, only Vicki."

"It is," Frank confirmed with a smile.

"And I suppose you won't tell me," Carolyn mock pouted, but her lips quickly curved upward. "A girl has to try. Why don't you come into the drawing room? Josette and I could use your company."

Carolyn didn't miss Frank's change in demeanor at the mention of Josette, but she pretended that she did.

"How is she?" Frank asked. "I've thought about her a couple of times since we found her, but I wasn't sure coming to visit her would be such a good idea."

Inwardly, she was chuckling at his rather poor attempt to mask his curiosity.

_I bet you've thought of her more times than a couple, Mr. Hamilton!_

Outwardly, she only grinned. "She's doing better. Has Burke found out anything about her? Mother said that he was doing some investigating."

"No, not a thing. But that's just in Collinsport, he's going to expand his search."

"Maybe you shouldn't mention that to her yet," Carolyn cautioned.

"I understand," Frank agreed.

She opened the doors to the drawing room and Josette looked up from her position in one of the chairs. She was noticeably startled to see Frank with Carolyn, but she rose in a graceful, fluid motion that belied her surprise.

"Hello, Josette." Frank spoke her name as if it had always been hers, the tone of his voice a bit lower than it had been when he was talking to Carolyn.

"Frank," she returned. A soft smile touched her face briefly.

"Since Burke's busy speaking with Mother, I thought Frank could come in and sit with us, keep us company," Carolyn explained to Josette, who only nodded.

Carolyn asked Frank how he liked Collinsport and how he'd met Burke. Frank asked her about Collinwood, but spent most of the time trying to engage Josette in conversation. He received a few smiles from her, but she still seemed distracted. Every once and awhile, Carolyn caught her staring beyond the opening of the drawing room and into the foyer in the direction of the front doors.

_Or the portrait of the original Barnabas Collins._

Carolyn recalled telling Josette about the portrait on her first night at Collinwood, but she'd forgotten all about it after that. She realized that Josette hadn't met her cousin yet and made a note to herself to introduce them if Barnabas didn't visit Collinwood soon. She wondered what he was doing at that moment. He had made himself scarce lately. They hardly ever saw him anymore!

"Vicki!" Carolyn greeted, as she noticed the dark haired governess standing idly at the entrance to the drawing room. "Don't just stand there, come on in. We're just waiting for your Mr. Devlin to get done talking with Mother. He said it would only be a few minutes and that was almost an hour ago."

Victoria smiled at Frank and Josette, then turned a confused gaze to Carolyn. "Burke is speaking with Mrs. Stoddard? What about?"

"I haven't a clue, you should ask him," Carolyn said, gesturing to Frank in playful exasperation.

Frank looked decidedly tense, which made Carolyn suspect that whatever Burke was discussing with her mother definitely had something to do with Victoria. "I don't know all the details, Vicki. I'll let Burke tell you."

"Alright," Victoria conceded with a smile. "Don't worry, I'll make sure he does."

"Make sure he does what?"

Burke stepped into the drawing room and stared at them all in amusement. Carolyn could plainly see that his discussion with her mother had gone well. Extremely well. He wore a grin that she doubted he could wipe from his face even if Roger were to suddenly walk in the door. His whole presence radiated satisfaction.

Since it was the normally scowling Burke Devlin, it made quite a sight.

"Say, I have something to celebrate. I can't tell you what it is yet," Burke began, and placed a finger against Victoria's lips before she could ask him what that something was. "I promise I will as soon as I can. Still, I would like to take you out tomorrow night in honor of it. In fact, you're all invited. My treat."

"Take him up on the offer. It's a rare one." Frank winked knowingly at Burke.

Carolyn just sighed. It was definitely about Victoria.

"Do you feel up to it, Josette? A fun night on the town?" Carolyn turned to Josette, who hadn't said a word since Victoria and Burke had come in.

"I suppose so," Josette answered, if a bit tentatively.

Carolyn didn't miss the way Frank's eyes brightened, or the way he smiled at Josette.

_This will certainly be interesting…_

An unexpected, deafening clap of thunder shook the walls of Collinwood, perhaps as a warning sign to those within.

"We'd better get going," Burke said to Frank. "It could start to pour at any minute."

"You're right. It sounds like this storm's going to be a bad one."

"They always are," Carolyn muttered. She felt the familiar beginnings of unease settle in her stomach. She hated storms at Collinwood.

She and Victoria watched as Burke and Frank left, so she didn't notice that Josette had returned her attention to the portrait of the eighteenth century Barnabas Collins.

She would have been too distracted by the approaching storm, anyway.


	7. Silent Scream

**Chapter 6 : _Silent Scream_**

**  
**

Something was eating at Barnabas Collins, and that made Willie Loomis very, very nervous. Whenever something bothered Barnabas, that usually meant trouble - for someone else.

No, it meant something worse than trouble.

It meant death.

Willie shifted anxiously on his feet and glanced at Barnabas out of the corner of his eye. He was standing by the large window in the drawing room, switching his gaze back and forth from outside of the Old House to Barnabas, who was sitting silently in his wing chair. Barnabas's face was expressionless, devoid of any emotion.

That was a look that Willie decided he liked even less than the one of quiet fury that Willie normally saw in its place.

_I got a bad feelin'. A terrible feelin'. Somethin's gonna happen. I know it._

Willie tried to shrug off the feeling, or at least ignore it. It was familiar to him by now. He'd had that feeling so many times since he'd "met" Barnabas that he guessed that he ought to be plenty used to it, but it still managed to catch him off guard and upset him.

Barnabas hadn't said anything to make him suspect that something awful was being planned, but then, Willie didn't need Barnabas to actually say it. He could see it in his eyes - those cold, calculating eyes.

No Barnabas hadn't said a word about a plan. In fact, Barnabas hadn't said much at all for the past few nights.

His silence just added to Willie's rapidly growing anxiety and unrelenting fear.

Knowing what had happened to Barnabas on Eagle Hill sure didn't do much to alleviate his frayed nerves.

Willie hadn't asked Barnabas what happened when he'd returned from his walk in the cemetery with such a haunted, grief-stricken appearance that Willie's jaw would have fallen open if he hadn't had the good sense to keep it shut. He could just imagine how Barnabas would have reacted if he'd seen Willie standing there in the foyer gaping at him like a fish.

Willie shuddered and tossed the image from his mind, then vowed not to imagine what Barnabas would do to him if he wasn't careful.

_That ain't helpin' my nerves._

He just happened to be passing by the closed door of Josette's room when he heard Barnabas speaking in a low, strangely hoarse voice to the portrait.

Willie didn't understand why Barnabas would talk to the portrait of Josette at first. It wasn't like he was actually talking to _her_. Then Willie remembered the times he talked to the memory of Maggie after she died, the pretty image he held of her inside of his mind. He figured he understood it better after that.

It was the only way Barnabas could communicate with her because she was dead. Just like Maggie was dead. The image, the memory of Maggie was all Willie had left. And all Barnabas had was the portrait.

Those incredibly rare moments when he understood even the smallest thing about Barnabas horrified him in some ways more than anything else ever could.

It was easier to separate Barnabas from normal human beings. Barnabas wasn't normal. He wasn't human. Humans didn't do the things that he did, or live in the horrible way that he had to.

Barnabas's words to the portrait confused him, made him curious despite the common sense that repeated the tired old phrase "curiosity killed the cat". When the following morning came and Barnabas returned to his coffin for the day, Willie set out for Eagle Hill cemetery. Once he was there, he found that what Barnabas had said was true.

Josette duPres's grave was gone.

_How does somethin' like a grave just disappear? It's crazy, it don't make no sense. Nothin' makes sense anymore, though, does it, Willie? Your life's all screwed up, and you ain't got no one to blame but yourself!_

Willie left the cemetery with a heavy feeling of dread that weighed down on him with each step he took back to the Old House. By the time he got inside, he'd felt ready to fall, to collapse. Give up. The life that he was forced to lead was crushing him underneath its weight.

Sometimes, when he was alone with just his thoughts, he wished someone would find out the truth about Barnabas, even if it meant he would be caught too. Then he wouldn't have to read articles in the paper about girls being attacked and he would be free.

_Yeah, sure. Your mind would be free, Willie Loomis, but ya'd end up in jail. That ain't exactly freedom, now is it?_

Still, he sometimes thought it would better, being in jail.

But then he always felt so guilty after thinking such things. He felt like he was betraying Barnabas. Barnabas was all he had now. Barnabas needed him. No matter how much he disgusted Barnabas, Barnabas relied on him. No one had ever relied on him before, not even Jason. He kind of liked that feeling, no matter how screwed up it was.

Willie told himself that it was just the control that Barnabas had over him. The power. That was why he couldn't get farther than the train station when he tried to run away, and why he felt so guilty when he wished Barnabas would be found out.

It wasn't like he cared, 'cause he didn't. How could he?

Barnabas was dead.

A cold, dead _thing_ that he'd turned loose when he tried to get rich.

_It's like that's my punishment or somethin', for every bad thing I've ever done in my life. I know the list's long, but why me? There's gotta be worse guys out there than me! Like Jason. He was just as bad as me, tryin' to blackmail Elizabeth Stoddard!_

But Jason McGuire had already paid for his ways - with his life.

Willie could still remember Barnabas's hand reaching out from the coffin and clutching Jason's throat. The terror in Jason's eyes. It was all too familiar to him.

_I told him, didn't I? I tried to warn him. But he didn't wanna listen to Willie Loomis. No one ever does…_

Even though Jason hadn't always treat him right, he hadn't wanted to bury him. The man had been his friend, maybe not a good one, but the only one he'd ever had. He had spent a lot of time at Jason's side. In the moment that Jason's body hit the basement floor with a sickening thud, Willie had wished that Barnabas had just done the same to him that night in the mausoleum. He wished that he'd been killed like Jason.

Death was the only way he would ever be free.

But death was too good for Willie Loomis. He could serve the dead, but he couldn't die himself. And truth be told, he didn't really want to die. Death terrified him as much as Barnabas. He would forever associate death with being locked in a coffin, unable to move, tormented. It was Barnabas's fault.

He hated Barnabas. He did.

Willie angrily wiped at his eyes, told himself it was just the wind that drove the water into them. He told himself a lot of things these days. He had no one else to talk to, other than the times he'd talked to Maggie in his mind, so he figured he might as well talk to himself.

Once, there were other voices in his head, but he didn't talk to them. They never really talked to him. They just haunted him, wouldn't leave him alone. Maggie was crying to him, Jason was laughing at him and Barnabas was threatening him.

He had taken sleeping pills then, so he could shut them out. He'd ended up sleeping for most of the day and well into the night. Barnabas had been pissed when he found out and he did more than threaten.

Willie wouldn't even take aspirin anymore.

He sighed to himself and worriedly looked outside. The storm had finally let up. He was about to turn around and say something to Barnabas, anything to break the awful silence in the room, when he glimpsed a small flash of white amongst the overgrown bushes and trees.

The flash of a white dress.

The white dress of the odd little girl he'd seen playing in the woods over a week ago!

_That little girl can't be playin' out there, not after that bad storm. I gotta be seein' things! But if I ain't, if she's really outside….Shouldn't I go out there and make sure she ain't hangin' around? _

I have to, if I don't want Barnabas to see her…and I sure don't want that. That would be bad.

_Really bad._

Willie glanced over his shoulder at Barnabas, relieved to see that Barnabas wasn't paying the least bit attention to him. He was still sitting in his chair, staring vacantly at the flames that flickered in the fireplace.

Willie opened his mouth to speak, then closed it. He figured he'd better not say anything and just take advantage of Barnabas's distraction to check for the girl. It was possible he hadn't really seen her, so it wasn't worth mentioning to Barnabas.

Barnabas would just get angry with him. And if he could avoid Barnabas getting angry with him, then Willie was all for it.

He crept as quietly as he could out of the drawing room and slipped out the front doors. It was cold due to the storm, but he didn't want to go back in to get his jacket and risk Barnabas noticing him wandering around. Barnabas would want to know what he was up to and then he'd have to tell him about seeing the girl. Barnabas wouldn't like knowing that the kid was still playing in the woods nearby.

_There was somethin' about his reaction when I told him about her the last time…somethin' weird. There was somethin' in his expression. It was almost like me talkin' about the little girl upset him. But it ain't like that doesn't make sense. I mean, if she's spendin' too much time around the Old House then she could see somethin' she shouldn't. He doesn't want that. He's afraid of that._

That's probably all there is to it.

He walked nervously into the woods in the direction that he had seen the girl flee in, but he couldn't make out anything in the darkness. Mud caked on his shoes and his feet sank into the wet ground with each step he took. He wandered aimlessly in circles before he realized he'd been outside for at least fifteen minutes or more.

_Which means Barnabas probably knows I'm gone by now. Better be headin' back._

"You don't have to be afraid. He doesn't know."

The small, shrill voice that came from behind him startled Willie so badly that he tripped and barely managed to keep from falling face first on the ground. Once he had regained his balance, he spun around with wild eyes. They widened in further surprise when he saw the source of the voice - the girl!

She stood not more than three feet away from him in her little white dress and bonnet, with her long hair showing no signs of the rain that had poured down all over Collinsport a half hour earlier.

He frowned at her words, confused and more than a little afraid.

Had he said his thoughts about Barnabas out loud?

"How do ya know that?" he asked her, assuming that he must have.

"I just do," she answered his question vaguely in that mysterious way of hers and shrugged as if it wasn't anything for him to get worked up over.

But he was doing just that - getting worked up. His heart had started to pound and his stomach tied itself into familiar, tangled knots of dread. He wished she would have just said that she had overheard him.

_It has to be. She overheard me, that's all. She don't know Barnabas…how can she? She don't know who I'm talkin' about. She can't know…she just can't!_

"Who do ya mean, when ya say 'he'?" Willie asked her, desperately trying to keep from getting too panicked, assuring himself over and over in his head that they weren't talking about the same person. That would be impossible. He had only seen her once and Barnabas had never seen her at all, so she couldn't know Barnabas.

It was that simple.

_Except ya know nothin' is ever simple around here, Willie Loomis…_

"What a silly question!" She giggled, then turned serious. "Won't you play with me? I had a friend who used to play with me, but she's gone now. I can't find her and I miss her. David doesn't always come and play with me. I get lonely."

Willie started to tell her that he couldn't play with her, that she shouldn't play in the woods anyway, especially so close to the Old House, then stopped. He'd told her that the last time he'd seen her and obviously she hadn't listened to him.

And he had an idea.

"I tell ya what," Willie gave her the best grin that he could muster under the circumstances. "If ya tell me the name of the person ya mentioned, I'll play with ya for awhile, what do ya say?"

_Please say yes. I gotta find out what ya know. I gotta make sure ya don't know anything about Barnabas. _

For your own sake and for mine…

She didn't say anything, instead she just stared. She folded her tiny arms and set her lips into a pout. Her wide, innocent eyes clouded and peered out at him through narrowed lids.

For a moment, as he waited for her reply, a strange feeling came over him. There was something about the way she was looking at him, something that made him uneasy. He realized that it was her eyes that caused that feeling.

There was something about her eyes…something familiar that made Willie feel colder than he had before. But then she smiled. The smile not only lit up her face, but brightened her eyes as well.

The feeling left him.

"You know who he is," she stated matter-of-factly. "You're funny, Willie."

"Hey, how do ya know my name?" Willie demanded, nearly hysterical as a result of what she'd said. "I never told ya my name!"

"I know lots of things," she informed him proudly, then frowned. "I even know some things I wish I didn't."

_No…!_

"What do ya know that ya wish ya didn't?"

_What if she knows about Barnabas!  
_

_What am I gonna do? I'll be forced to tell Barnabas, I can't keep it from him. He'd know somethin' was wrong and I've already told him about seein' her the first time. But maybe….maybe he'd just think I'm imaginin' things._

Maybe I am imaginin' things. Maybe I'm goin' crazy, losin' my mind. Maybe she ain't really standin' there, maybe she ain't even real….maybe….

"I have to go, and you do too. He was thinking about her, but he knows you're gone now," she nodded in the direction of the Old House. "He'll come looking for you."

Willie wasn't thinking, if he had been, he wouldn't have done it. He wouldn't have turned around to glance fearfully back at the Old House. He would have kept his eyes on the little girl who knew far too much for someone her age.

Then she wouldn't have been able to disappear again.

But thinking before he acted wasn't something that Willie was very good at it, even after he thought he'd learned that lesson, so he turned around and when he turned back, the little girl was gone.

"Hey!" Willie cried out.

Just like before, she had vanished, like she'd never been there talking to him in the first place.

His first thought as he entered the Old House and walked tensely into the drawing room was that the girl had been wrong, that Barnabas hadn't realized that Willie had left. Barnabas wasn't pacing, or even standing by the window. He was still in his chair.

But his dark eyes were no longer vacant, or staring at the fire. They were staring straight at him, glittering dangerously.

"Where did you feel the need to go without informing me, Willie?"

Willie swallowed hard in an attempt to down his fear.

"I…I just went for a walk, Barnabas."

Barnabas rose from the chair in one smooth motion and circled him, studying him so intensely that Willie felt a tremor run through his body. He twisted his hands together to keep them from trembling.

"A walk, Willie…are you sure that was all you were doing?"

He cringed as he felt Barnabas move to stand directly behind him. He could feel those eyes, _those damned eyes,_ staring at the back of his head. Staring right through him. Willie struggled to keep breathing.

_Out and in, nice and slow._

"Well, yeah, Barnabas. I just needed to go out for a few minutes, get some air. That's all."

_Out and in, nice and slow. _

"You needed some air," Barnabas repeated. He made the words sound small and insignificant, pathetic even. Willie flinched. "Perhaps because you feel you should not have to suffer my presence, as I have to suffer yours."

Willie's eyes widened.

_This ain't goin' good at all…_

"Barnabas-" he stammered, struggling for the something he could say and failing to come up with anything that he could make sound believable. It didn't help that his heart was pounding so fast that it felt like it was about to burst out of his chest and the fear that he had been holding down was fighting to break free of his weak control.

He didn't want to tell Barnabas about the girl. If he told Barnabas and Barnabas believed him, she would be in danger because of him.

If Barnabas suspected that she knew his secret…knew what he was….

_Would Barnabas kill her? _

_If he felt threatened enough, would he kill a harmless little kid?_

He already knew the answer.

The knowledge made him sick. He felt like screaming. He knew that if he opened his mouth though, he wouldn't scream. He would just cry and beg. He would beg Barnabas not to hurt her and cry because he wouldn't be able to stop Barnabas if he decided to do just that.

"I do believe that you are lying to me, Willie."

"I'm not lyin'," he protested weakly, though he knew there was no way that Barnabas would believe him. Hell, he wouldn't have believed him himself.

"Willie…." Barnabas's voice took on a dangerous edge. "Willie, we have been over this before. Do you remember when I told you that you are never to lie to me? Do you recall our conversation?"

He nodded. He remembered the "conversation" very well.

He remembered the _pain_.

"Then perhaps you should not make the mistake of lying to me now?"

It was phrased like a question, but Willie knew it wasn't a question. It was an order. His breathing had become erratic. He forced himself to respond.

"Barnabas-"

He stopped short when he felt the cold hand grip his shoulder so tightly that it felt like the bone was going to shatter beneath its grip. He cried out in pain, but Barnabas didn't let go, he merely used his hold on Willie's shoulder to pull him savagely around.

Willie swallowed hard as he found himself face to face with Barnabas, whose eyes were narrowed into near slits and regarding him with absolute fury. He knew that if, _if_, he got another chance to answer, it would be the only one he would get before Barnabas would hurt him.

He should be used to it - Barnabas hurting him. But somehow he wasn't. Somehow, it still terrified him, still made him shake.

"It's just…I…I…" Willie began to stutter as the grip on his shoulder tightened even more than it already was. "I saw her again, Barnabas! Right outside! I didn't tell ya 'cause I didn't think ya'd believe me, but I had to check, I had to be sure. I went out to look for her and she was out there! The little girl!"

"The little girl," Barnabas sneered. The steel grip on Willie's shoulder eased, but the pain was still excruciating. Black spots marred his vision. He nodded weakly, defeated.

"She wanted me to play with her. She said she was lonely. But Barnabas, she…she…I think she knows somethin'…somethin' she shouldn't. She talked about secrets that she knew but wished she didn't." His voice dropped to a reluctant whisper. "And I think….I think she knows ya, Barnabas. I think she knows what ya are."

Willie sent a silent, useless apology to the innocent little girl whose life he had just endangered.

_I'm sorry! I didn't want to, but I had to! I had to tell Barnabas, I can't keep nothin' from him! I'm sorry!_

Barnabas let go of him completely and he stumbled back, but he managed to keep himself standing. All he really wanted to do was fall to the floor. His shoulder was throbbing and he found it took too much energy to try and stop his trembling, so he stood there, shaking uncontrollably.

"That is absurd," Barnabas hissed, more to himself than to Willie.

Willie didn't say anything, partly out of fear - well, mostly out of fear - and partly because he didn't know what to say. He didn't understand what was happening. He didn't understand how a grave that had been in the ground for over a hundred years could suddenly not exist anymore, or how a kid in a white dress could disappear so quickly right in front of him.

He watched as Barnabas paced the drawing room, then slowly lowered himself back into his chair. He pressed his hands together and twisted his black ring back and forth on his finger.

Willie had come to recognize it as a nervous gesture.

Strange, that gesture. Disconcerting. It was such a normal thing. It was the same as Willie constantly running his hands through his hair.

It was normal, but Barnabas wasn't.

Not at all.

"What…" Barnabas paused, and no matter how crazy it seemed, for a minute, Willie would have sworn that Barnabas was actually struggling for words. "Describe her to me, Willie."

Willie pictured the girl in his mind. It was pretty easy to do, since she didn't really look like any other kid he'd ever seen.

"She had long, straight hair. She was wearin' a dress, but it was kinda weird…old fashioned. I ain't seen any other little girls wearin' that kinda dress. She had a lace bonnet on her head and it seemed old fashioned like the dress."

"How old was she?" Barnabas asked him, in a low, quiet tone not at all like the cold, demanding one that he had used until then.

"I don't know, Barnabas, maybe around ten." Willie shrugged nervously.

"Ten…" Barnabas echoed softly, clearly affected by his description of the girl. He suddenly looked as tired as Willie felt. Willie's brow furrowed at Barnabas's reaction. At first he thought it was a trick of the candlelight, the sudden sadness that appeared out of nowhere on Barnabas's face.

"Barnabas, ya know her, don't ya?" Willie couldn't stop himself, the question flew out of his mouth before he remembered that keeping it closed was the better thing to do.

But Barnabas made no move to reprimand him. To Willie's surprise, he only uttered a single word, a name.

"Sarah."

Barnabas had whispered the name as though it were one of the most important names that anyone could have been given, like it was royalty. The only name that Barnabas had ever said like that before was Josette's. He rose from his chair and turned away from Willie, staring out into the night as if he expected the little girl to be just beyond the glass.

Just beyond his reach.

Instantly, Willie understood. He knew.

He knew because he remembered. He remembered the night Barnabas killed Jason, when he'd told Barnabas that Jason was his friend. He remembered when Barnabas had begun talking strangely, like he never had before, about caring for someone.

Willie at first hadn't believed that Barnabas could care about anyone, but when he listened to Barnabas's words, he had heard an emotion that he'd always thought was foreign to Barnabas. He'd heard true adoration. Not the kind that Barnabas had for Josette, but an innocent, pure devotion that Willie figured to be beyond him - beyond what Barnabas was.

He remembered after they had disposed of Jason's body in the secret room, when he'd seen the names carved into the walls of the mausoleum and made the connection that they had been Barnabas's family. He remembered reading the name of Sarah Collins and the date of her death and realizing that she had been the one Barnabas had been speaking of. The one he cared for.

His little sister, Sarah Collins, who had died in seventeen ninety-five.

_I was talkin' to a ghost! Either that, or I'm finally takin' the plunge off the deep end…  
_

But he knew he wasn't crazy. If he could just throw away the insanity of it for a moment, it almost made sense.

The old fashioned dress and shoes. The way she disappeared faster than she could have ran from him. The way she had pointed to the Old House when he'd asked where she lived.

_She had_ _lived here. Over a hundred years ago…  
_

Her eyes had been so familiar and frightening to him because they belonged to another as well.

They belonged to Barnabas. She'd had his eyes.

Willie stood numbly in the middle of the drawing room and gazed openly at where Barnabas stood in front of the window, trying to reconcile the cute little girl with the cold, destructive being before him.

For the life of him, he couldn't. He just couldn't.

But he kept trying.

* * *

Within the rooms of Collinwood, there were those in peaceful slumber, but there was no peace for the young woman who called herself Josette. Her dreams were filled with distorted remnants of her forgotten memories, memories that were buried so deeply in her soul that she could not access them in her waking hours.

* * *

_Death draped over the darkened room, a desolate unwavering shroud._

_He lay in the bed before her, so very still. The silence was suffocating, stifling._

_She could not breathe, for he no longer drew breath. _

_He had been her breath. _

Her life.

_He was gone. _

_All that was left was a hollow shell of pale skin and haggard features that betrayed every moment of misery that he had suffered in his last hours, and his promise. It echoed around her, around the shattered fragments that had once been her heart. It revived her dying soul with its faint shard of hope._

"_I will come back for you, Josette. I will come back."_

_She would hold on to that small piece of hope and pray that it would not desert her. Destroy her._

_She would mourn him, but she would await his return. She would weep with tears of sorrow, then cry tears of joy when she was in his arms again._

_He kept his promise. He returned in a world of ominous twilight and invited her to cross the threshold into that world, to take his hand and exist eternally with him._

_His death had not been the end._

_**Her** death had been the end.  
_

_He had kept his promise. _

She had broken hers.

The hem of the white lace dress she was wearing brushed against the ground, which was cold and hard beneath her feet. The wind wrapped around her, warning her away from the towering, forsaken white edifice that shimmered in the moonlight, and still she neared it. It beckoned to her.

_**He** beckoned to her. _

The wind howled in protest, formed the shapes of those that would stop her. Those who did not want her to reach the old mansion. Reach him.

_A man with a face swathed in bandages and pained eyes that peered out from them. He called to her, called her his wife. He begged her to turn, to run away._

_A woman with blonde ringlets and startlingly clear blue eyes taunted her, laughed cruelly as she passed._

_A little girl stood on the front steps of the large portico. She smiled at her and pointed to the doors that would lead her to him. "He's waiting for you."_

_She walked to the doors and placed one hand on the wood. She gazed over her shoulder and saw them staring at her._

She knew those people. They had been a part of her life, before it had been torn violently asunder.

_She turned their back on them._

_The doors groaned as she slipped through them. She closed them resolutely behind her before facing her final journey. Slowly, she climbed the stairs, ignoring the damp chill that permeated the air, the malevolence that lay within the veneer of sorrow._

_The curse buried in the shadows._

With each step, she drew closer to him. She could feel his essence within the walls surrounding her. The house was saturated with it. She knew where she would find him. She knew where he would be.

Her room.

_The one that he had made for her. The one that she had slept in when she still believed that they would be husband and wife, and live a happy, fulfilled life together. They would never live that life, but they could be together. All she had to do was open the door to her room and step into his welcoming arms. He would forgive her for leaving him because she had returned, and they would never be separated again._

He was standing by the foot of her bed, his black cloak spilling sinuously to the floor. He held out his hand to her, and his onyx ring gleamed in the muted candlelight.

_They were a portrait of contrast as they faced each other. His hands were cold, her own were warm. The satin of her dress brushed against the velvet of his cloak as he swept her into his arms, light brushed against dark._

_One would eclipse the other._

_The light would destroy him. _

The dark would be her death.

He lowered his lips to her throat, caressed her heated skin with his icy fingertips, and smothered her scream with his love.


	8. Prisoners

**Chapter 7 : _Prisoners_**

Carolyn sighed and placed the book that had been in her lap on the table in front of her, listening as the clock chimed the hour. Four o'clock.

She and Josette still had at least two hours to get ready before Frank would pick them up to meet Burke and Victoria. The happy couple were going to spend a few hours alone together before they all met at the Blue Whale for Burke's "celebration". Her mother had given Victoria permission to end David's lessons early.

Carolyn was certain that her mother knew more about Burke's plans than what she would tell, but Carolyn received no answers to satisfy her curiosity. She wasn't without her own suspicions, however. She had come to her own conclusion about Burke's new attitude.

She was bored silly sitting in the drawing room, and she wished Josette would return so that they could get ready together. Her mother had been pleasantly surprised by how much time she spent with Josette when she so rarely did anything with Victoria. Carolyn had told her that between David and Burke, Victoria's time was filled up.

Carolyn didn't mind it in the end, not really. Though she had come to like Victoria, the two of them had never been all that close.

Victoria had been closer to Maggie. She'd taken Maggie's death hard, and so had many others. Maggie's death had been so sudden, but then, her kidnapping had been just as sudden. The entire affair was extremely upsetting. Her mother had ordered both she and Victoria not to go out at night alone, for fear of something happening to them as it did to Maggie. Later, she had done the same to Josette. Though Carolyn was a little annoyed with the order, she couldn't really blame her mother.

What happened to Maggie was awful, and so very strange. Though she never said as much, it disturbed Carolyn as much as it did anyone.

Carolyn reached forward and picked up the old book she had placed on the table, hoping for a distraction from her troublesome thoughts of Maggie Evans. She absent mindedly thumbed through the musty, yellowed pages before closing it again. It was the Collins family history book. She'd found it and planned to show it to Josette, who seemed to be quite fascinated with the many portraits of the family ancestors that decorated (morbidly, in Carolyn's opinion) the walls in the house.

She knew that what she really ought to do was introduce Josette to Barnabas. Barnabas always seemed to be so caught up in the past and he knew so much about it that if such things were possible, Carolyn would have sworn that he had lived through it!

Like a sudden flash of the lightening that had lit up the sky on the evening that it had happened, Carolyn remembered the night that she and Victoria had spent in Collinwood during a particularly bad storm when Barnabas had told them the story of the Collins family's Josette.

The one who had come to Collinsport in 1795 to be a bride, only to later throw herself from Widows' Hill….

Carolyn was about to reach for the book once more when Victoria came into the drawing room with a white paper in her hand.

"Vicki! I didn't expect you to be here," Carolyn exclaimed with surprise. The book and the story of Josette Collins were momentarily forgotten. "I thought Burke would've whisked you out of the castle and to the ball by now."

Victoria gave her an embarrassed smile for her teasing. "Oh, he's going to be here soon. I'm finished getting ready so I thought I would come down here and wait." She placed the paper, which Carolyn assumed to be one of David's, on the antique desk and glanced down at her dress.

"You look great," Carolyn complimented.

"Thank you, Carolyn."

Victoria didn't usually spend a lot of time on her appearance, at least not the time that Carolyn did, but Carolyn thought that Victoria looked especially pretty in the pale pink dress she was wearing. Her hair was pinned neatly to her head and she was wearing a bit of make-up on her face.

_I wonder how much she suspects about tonight…._

Carolyn grinned to herself and motioned for Victoria to join her. "Keep me company. I'm just waiting for Josette to come back. Mrs. Johnson said she left for a walk a couple of hours ago. She said that she seemed very quiet and distracted."

"I hope everything's all right," Victoria frowned. "Maybe she remembered something."

"Maybe. Personally though, I think she just needs to get out of this house for and spend some time out and about. She has been cooped up here now for several days and that can't be doing her any good. She can't just sit around and wait for her memory to come back. We both know that with the way Dr. Woodard talked, she might be waiting for a long time."

"Well, I hope she has a good time tonight with all of us, and I-" Victoria paused mid sentence and gazed down at the table. "I didn't know you were interested in the family history," she remarked. She picked up the book and studied it with careful hands.

"I'm not, I just brought it down to show Josette," Carolyn explained. "She seemed to like the portraits we have on the walls, so I thought she might be interested in reading about the people in them. Though if she's truly interested in the portraits, I don't think this book would interest her as much as Barnabas. I'm sure he could tell her as much as it could."

"Yes, he does seem to know a lot about the past," Victoria agreed.

"I used to think the family history was somewhat dull. Though I will admit, Barnabas's story of Josette Collins certainly wasn't dull. Tragic and frightening, but never dull for a moment."

Again, Carolyn's mind turned to the story of Josette Collins. She couldn't help it. It was a very chilling story.

She shivered, remembering the scene of the tale: during the storm with only candles to light the darkness. The way Barnabas had spoke of the young woman had made Carolyn just as uneasy as the tale itself. The haunting way he described her death…

His account of her death was so vivid - like he had been the one pursuing her through the woods and to the cliff!

Carolyn shook her head to clear it. Not only was that an impossible thought, but also an incredibly silly one! Barnabas was just taken by the romanticism of the past. He had simply spoken in a tone that suggested his love for its legends.

"Josette…." Carolyn heard Victoria murmur.

"Vicki?" Carolyn questioned, when she saw that her friend's face had gone blank and that she was staring straight ahead at what Carolyn perceived to be nothing at all.

The young governess suddenly turned to her with an odd, out of place expression. She glanced down at the book in her hands and then back at Carolyn.

"Carolyn…." Victoria began, and Carolyn thought she looked hesitant, unsure that she should say what she was about to. "When you first met Josette, when Frank and Burke brought her here, did she remind you of someone?"

Carolyn didn't have to think for very long.

"Maggie," she answered almost immediately, recalling how she'd thought that Josette _was_ Maggie for a moment, even though she'd known that Maggie was dead.

"I thought so as well," Victoria said with unease. "She does resemble Maggie, but then I found that she resembled someone else more. I haven't been able to stop thinking about it, even though I don't understand it."

"Who?"

For a time Victoria was silent, fidgeting with the book in her hands. Carolyn could plainly see by her actions that she was nervous. Finally, Victoria stilled her hands by laying them flat on the book's cover and met her gaze, which she was sure betrayed her curiosity.

"Josette Collins."

Victoria said the name matter-of-factly, like what she was stating was obvious. Carolyn didn't think it was, but then she hadn't known that much about the woman whose name their Josette had taken for herself before Barnabas had described her death. Josette Collins had been just another Collins ancestor until Barnabas had turned her into something of a tragic figure in a romantic horror story.

"Perhaps you only think that because our Josette chose that name, and you've connected the two of them in your mind," she suggested, though suddenly for no real reason at all, she felt as uneasy as Victoria sounded.

Victoria shook her head. "No. She truly does look like her. In fact, they look exactly alike! Surely you remember the portrait in the Old House - the one of Josette?"

Carolyn thought back to the time she and Vicki had wandered over to the Old House during the day, to see the progress of its restoration. Barnabas hadn't been there, but they had gone looking through the house anyway. She had a faint memory of the portrait, but not a good enough one to say with certainty that Victoria was right.

"A little, but not well enough to get a clear picture in my mind of exactly what Josette looks like."

"I'll show you," Victoria said, and opened the book on her lap to search through the old pages. "Look at this, it's nearly the same as the portrait."

She leaned over and handed the book to Carolyn, and as they studied the photo of Josette Collins, Carolyn couldn't help the small gasp that escaped her throat. The unease that had been present inside of her since Victoria had mentioned her dead ancestor nearly came alive in the bottom of her stomach and made it churn.

If she hadn't known that she was staring at a photo of a woman who had been dead since seventeen ninety-five, she would have sworn that she was staring at a picture of the young woman that she'd recently taken shopping!

Like her cousin Barnabas and his ancestor in the portrait that decorated the foyer wall, the resemblance was striking - almost unbelievably so!

"I see what you mean," Carolyn conceded, unable to remove her eyes from the book. "They do look exactly alike."

"Don't you think it's odd, Carolyn, that we thought of Maggie when Burke and Frank first brought her here? I've never noticed that Maggie resembled Josette Collins before, even when I first saw the portrait in Old House….but Maggie did slightly resemble her. Not the way that she does, but the resemblance is there just the same."

Carolyn tore her eyes away from the book to look at Victoria as she realized that there was more than just a resemblance between the three women - or at the very least, two of them.

"Vicki, that's not all. Frank and Burke found our Josette on the rocks below Widows' Hill," she reminded her softly, as a shiver made its way up her spine. "Josette Collins threw herself from Widows' Hill. They found her body on those same rocks."

"What do you think it means?" Victoria asked, clearly confused by Carolyn's words.

"Probably nothing." Carolyn hoped her voice was as casual as she tried to make it sound. "An odd coincidence is all. I'll admit that the name Josette isn't very common, so I'm not sure how she thought of it. Maybe it really is her name, and so what if it is? I'm sure there's no connection between a her and a woman who lived here over a hundred years ago."

Victoria nodded, seemingly satisfied by what she'd said. "I'm sure you're right. Well, I'd better go to my room and get my purse. Burke should be on his way."

She set the book back down on the table and went upstairs, leaving Carolyn alone with the book and her thoughts. Slowly, she picked it up, turned once more to the page of Josette Collins, and read the script below the photo.

Josette du Pres. Born on the French island of Martinique. Arrived in Collinsport and married Jeremiah Collins. Died by her own hand in seventeen ninety-five.

Carolyn's hand seemed to turn the pages on its own accord and she found herself staring at miniature version of a very familiar portrait.

The portrait of the original Barnabas Collins.

Barnabas Collins. Son of Joshua and Naomi Collins and brother of Sarah Collins. Left for England in seventeen ninety-five.

Carolyn marveled again at how much her cousin resembled his namesake.

_And now there's another at Collinwood with a face from the past… _

_And the same name…_

Carolyn closed the book with a snap, ignoring the dust that flew about her as she did so. She was unsettled by the photos and her conversation with Victoria.

She gathered the book in her arms and headed in the direction of her room. Once inside, she opened a drawer and stuffed it underneath her many winter scarves and gloves.

She couldn't understand exactly why, but she no longer felt that she should show Josette the Collins family history book.

* * *

Josette was lost. 

She had assured Mrs. Johnson that she would be all right when the kindly older woman had suggested waiting for Carolyn or one of the others to accompany her. She was so sure that she could find her way around the grounds of the estate since she and Carolyn had walked it together before. At the present however, she found herself wandering in the woods, unable to find her way back to Collinwood.

She had not wanted to disturb anyone, nor had she truly wanted anyone to come with her. All she really wanted was to be alone, so that she could reflect on her peculiar and troubling dream.

_Was it only a dream, or could it have been a memory? If it was a memory, why can I not remember most of it? Why do I only remember fragments? _

_Think, Josette….you must think of what you do remember. Perhaps since you remember something, you can eventually remember the rest._

Distracted from her plight, she closed her eyes and tried to envision the scenes from her dream. However, it was the _feelings_, not any vague images, that suddenly overcame her.

Anguish and loss and despair.

Overpowering love….and fear.

With those feelings, one distorted, hazy image floated into her mind - a tall, intimidating structure of white. It was so faint, so elusive….she struggled to hold on to the image, to somehow make it clearer, but failed. It faded from her mind before she was unable to identify what it had been.

What it had meant.

_It's all so hopeless…I will never remember!_

"Never," she whispered aloud.

She opened her eyes as a single tear cut a path down the side of her face. She was so immersed in her sorrow that it took her several moments to see the building standing in front of her amongst the overgrown trees and foliage.

A white mansion with towering columns that seemed to reach the sky, and a portico that surrounded it as far as she could see.

_A tall, intimidating structure of white._

It had to be the Old House.

The house that Barnabas Collins lived in.

_It almost looks like….no, it cannot be the same. I could not have dreamed about this house, nor could I have remembered it. I've never been here before. The Collins family told me that they have never met me. It does not look the same. There is something very different about this house and the building in my dream…._

As she slowly approached the ancient mansion, she realized what that difference was. It was in the appearance. The house before her was decayed from age, from time itself. The grandeur that it had surely once possessed was gone, and in its place was a forlorn, barren relic. It looked abandoned, as though no one had lived in it for years. According to Carolyn, no one had before Barnabas Collins had arrived from England.

The building in her dream had seemed new, _alive_ in a way the one before her did not.

_Why does that make me sad?_

She told herself that she had no choice but to go to the Old House as she approached the portico and walked relcuntantly up the steps. She had to find someone who could help her find her way back to Collinwood.

Surely Barnabas Collins would be there to help her.

Carolyn had said that Barnabas was never there during the day, but night would be falling soon. The sky was beginning to darken, and the sun was lowering into the horizon.

If Barnabas was not inside the Old House, she would be forced to wait outside until he returned, which meant that Carolyn and the others would become worried.

She slowly made her way to the huge double doors, and recalled her desire to go to the Old House on the previous night. She had wanted so desperately to meet Barnabas Collins after seeing the portrait of his ancestor in the foyer at Collinwood. Only the storm had kept her from searching out the house. She tried to remember why she'd felt that she had to meet him, but could not.

As she stood, her hand raised to knock on one of the old oak doors, she only wished to run away. The huge columns that encircled the house suddenly made her feel caged, barred from the world just beyond them.

_This house is a tomb, and I will become its prisoner._

Startled, her hand flew to her mouth and caught her gasp.

Where had that thought come from?

She was frozen, conflicted. Her mind insisted that she had to stay where she was, that that was the only way she could return to Collinwood. Her heart was divided, torn. It wanted to her to flee, and yet it also wanted her to stay.

_Why do I feel like this, and what should I do?_

The house itself answered her.

She heard the almost inaudible creaking of an opening door, but there was no one behind it. Her heart began to race as she peered inside. While she fought down her fear, she waited for someone to greet her.

No one did.

_The wind must have caused the door to open._

The flickering glow of candlelight was her only invitation.

_Should I go in? Would it not be presumptuous of me?_

Her feet moved forward of their own accord and before she was even aware of what she had done, she'd slipped through the door and stepped into the foyer of the house. It was not as large or as impressive as Collinwood's, but it was stunning just the same.

_And so very familiar. _

"Is anyone here?" she called out softly.

She listened for the sound of footsteps, but there were none. Silence was all that answered her, silence and the faint ticking of a clock that came from her left. She followed the sound and it led her into an elegantly furnished drawing room. Candles were lit on the tables and on the fireplace mantel.

Her eyes rose from the small, dancing flames to the portrait above them.

_Barnabas Collins…_

_It's almost identical to the one at Collinwood! _

Only the clothes distinguished the two and enabled her to see that the portrait she was staring at was one of the family's English cousin and not the ancestor of long ago.

Outside, the sky had darkened considerably, enough to cast shadows on the walls and over the face in the portrait. The face of Barnabas Collins.

Josette knew that she should leave and not to continue to linger. It would hardly be right for her to remain there when no one was home, just as it had not been right for her to walk inside uninvited. But when the door had opened on its own, she'd been compelled to enter the house. Her will had been stripped away from her in that moment. She had been powerless to resist the house's call.

_But is it the house that called to me, or is it something else? Something…or someone?_

_Oh, Josette, you are being silly again. You came here because you need to find your way back to Collinwood and you had hoped someone would be here to help you do that. _

_You had hoped that it would be Barnabas Collins. _

_Barnabas…_

_Why do I wish to meet him so? _

She had not taken her eyes from the portrait. The man in it seemed to be staring at her, staring through her. She had thought the same about the one at Collinwood.

But as she gazed at the portrait, she noticed one difference, other than the style of dress. It was such a small variation. She doubted many would see it, but she saw it very distinctly, and it brought a chill to her not unlike the one she had experienced in Eagle Hill with Carolyn.

The difference was in the eyes.

Both had the same extraordinarily dark eyes….but the eyes that belonged to the family's cousin reflected emotions that the other's did not.

Melancholy…and malice.

_So cold. His eyes are so cold, and yet they burn brighter than the flames of the fire._

His eyes were a contradiction, much like the house itself was a contradiction.

From the outside, the house appeared forsaken, lost to time and decay…and an ominous aura of death. From the inside, however, the house was resplendent, ageless…and alive with a presence that both terrified and enthralled her.

Finally, she turned from the portrait and gazed at her surroundings, searching….

_Searching for what? _

She went back into the foyer and stared at the doors. Resolutely, she started over to them, but something made her glance back. What she saw behind her made her pause.

It was a door. She had not noticed it when she'd come into the house, but it was positioned directly to the left of the stairs, hidden in the shadows. There was a small, barred opening that seemed to guard only blackness.

_What I'm searching for is beyond that door… I know it is._

Josette stepped back until she felt herself brush against the front doors of the house. She was afraid, and she did not understand why. She did not understand any of her feelings. None of them made any sense. The house seemed familiar to her, and yet she had certainly never been in the house before because someone at Collinwood would have known her. Her fascination with Barnabas Collins was also horribly confusing, because she could not have met him. He had arrived from England only months ago.

Not only did Josette feel that she should leave, she wanted to leave. She wanted to run from the house and the feelings it brought to her.

She wanted to forget them like she had forgotten her past.

She was so troubled that when the doors behind her suddenly opened, she turned to face them and screamed.

* * *

Willie looked nervously to the sky as he hurried up the steps of the Old House portico, thankful that he had gotten back in time. It wasn't quite dark yet, which meant that Barnabas was still in the coffin. He clumsily pushed open the double doors, and was greeted by a sight that caused him to cry out in shock and fear. 

"Oh god," he stuttered, the words clumsily fell from his lips in a whisper.

For a moment, he was sure it was Maggie Evans come to torment him, to make him feel even more guilty than he already did. But as he took in the woman who stood before him, he realized that he wasn't looking at Maggie Evans' ghost…but he was looking at a ghost all the same.

_It ain't possible. I'm seein' things. Come on, Willie, ya gotta stop seein' these things! It ain't possible! Maggie's dead and so is she! She's even deader than Maggie! She's been dead for over a hundred years!_

He was looking at the portrait in the upstairs bedroom come to life - the woman Barnabas had tried to turn Maggie into before he had killed her.

He was looking at Josette du Pres!


	9. Haunted

**Chapter 8 : _Haunted_**

"And she still hasn't returned?"

Carolyn turned from the foyer clock to face her mother and shook her head. "She hasn't come in. She has been gone most of the day, I'm worried something that something may have happened to her."

It had been an hour since Burke had arrived and taken Victoria out. Within another hour, Frank would arrive to take she and Josette to meet them at the Blue Whale.

"She knew that Frank was picking us up. She would've been back by now if something hadn't happened to detain her. Mother, for all we know she could be lost in the woods somewhere….or worse."

Carolyn didn't want to think of what "worse" meant. But with the frequent attacks on young women in the town, it was impossible not to.

"When Mr. Hamilton arrives, I'll phone Sheriff Patterson and request that he send some of his deputies here to search for her. I'm sure Mr. Hamilton will want to help as well. Perhaps she got lost in the woods and can't find her way back. I do hope nothing has happened to her. I would feel responsible for it if something did. She's in our care while she stays here, and she has been no trouble at all. I've rarely met anyone as polite as she is. Carolyn, I promise that we'll do everything we can to find her if she doesn't return soon."

Carolyn nodded, but inwardly she wished that the police were already searching. Another hour seemed too long. Josette had been gone for several hours already. Of course Frank would help with the search. Carolyn knew that he had come to care very much about Josette in the short time he'd known her. He was likely to be looking a great deal forward to their evening out, and he would be worried if he knew the situation.

"I hope so too, Mother," Carolyn fretted. "But I have this awful feeling that she's in danger."

She could see the concern on her mother's face deepen at her words. She tried to pass off her fear, tell herself that she could be overreacting, but she was certain she wasn't.

"Wherever she is, she's in danger. I'm sure of it."

* * *

"I'm so sorry! You startled me….but I startled you as well. I must apologize, I-" 

The ghost paused as Willie backed away. She seemed to notice the panicked, crazed expression that Willie knew was on his face, because one dark eyebrow furrowed and her lips drew into a frown. She stepped hesitantly forward and then stopped, as if unsure of how to continue to haunt him.

Then she spoke again in a soft voice that had him questioning his sanity. To hear that voice one time was enough, but to hear it a second time…

"Are you all right?"

_I'm really losin' it. I'm goin' crazy. First I'm talkin' to disappearing little girls in the middle of the woods, and now I'm seein' and hearin' the ghost of Josette du Pres! And she's askin' me if I'm alright! Of course I ain't alright. I'm goin' crazy!  
_

Willie shook his head wildly.

"Ya ain't supposed to be here, you're supposed to be…..gone," he fumbled, not taking his eyes off of the specter. "And if ya gotta come back, if ya gotta haunt somebody, why don't ya go to him? Why don't ya haunt him? Why haunt Willie Loomis? I never hurt ya! I ain't done nothin' to ya!"

The brown eyes of the ghost widened in what appeared to Willie to be surprised confusion and more than a little bit of fear.

He was surprised too. She almost looked as scared of him as he was of her!

_Why should she be scared? She's the ghost! _

_But she is scared. She's shakin'. Maybe bringin' up Barnabas upset her. I shouldn't a said anythin'. She ain't never appeared to him before, maybe she don't wanna see him. Maybe she don't wanna haunt him. _

The ghost of Josette continued to stare at him fearfully.

"It's nice to meet you, Mr. Loomis," she said in a quiet, timid tone. "I'm afraid I do not understand. I'm sure I'm not the person that you think I am. Do you know the Collins family?"

"Yeah, sure I do," Willie answered the question cautiously.

The ghost of Josette wouldn't have had to ask him about the Collins family. At least that was what he figured, but he wasn't sure.

He couldn't be sure about anything anymore.

"Who are ya?" he stammered. His heart began to slow just enough so that he wouldn't have to keep feeling it hammer away inside his chest. He hated that. It always made him afraid that one day it would explode on him, just quit altogether. If it ever did that would be the end of him, the end of Willie Loomis.

It was funny how someone could almost long for something, but be afraid of it happening at the same time.

The ghost of Josette, or whoever the hell she was, gave him a weary smile.

"That should be a fairly simple question, but I honestly cannot answer it," she admitted, seeming somewhat sad. "I have no memories of my life before a man named Burke Devlin and a friend of his found me. Do you know him?"

Oh, he knew Burke Devlin. Hated him. He didn't hate him as much as he used to though. He guessed it was because he found out there were worse things then the arrogant, over confident businessman that had tried to run him out of town with his tail tucked between his legs. He could no longer summon up his old, intense hatred of Burke Devlin. His hatred wasn't for Burke anymore.

No, that kind of hatred was reserved for someone else.

_Why didn't ya listen to him, Willie Loomis? Maybe he shoulda hit ya harder that day at the Blue Whale…_

Willie nodded in confirmation. "I know Burke."

His answer seemed to relax her some. She still looked nervous, but she wasn't shaking anymore.

"He and his friend took me to Collinwood and I've been staying there. I went for a walk because I wanted to be alone for awhile, and I'm afraid I got lost. Carolyn had told me about a cousin that lived on the estate, so when I saw this house I hoped that he would be here to help me find my way back to Collinwood. I knocked, but no one answered. I would not have entered, but the door opened. I thought maybe someone was here. I'm very sorry I frightened you."

"It's okay," he muttered, beginning to realize that she wasn't a ghost at all. Relief flooded through him. He didn't want to deal with another ghost.

He was tired of ghosts.

But if she wasn't a ghost then that meant -

A new terror shot through him.

_She's alive! She's a real girl! She's really standin' here in this house, and she looks just like Josette!_

_What time is it! Is it dark! _

_God, don't let it be dark!_

She didn't notice that he was panicking all over again, she was too busy staring fretfully past him through the doors that he'd left hanging open.

"Carolyn and the others are going to worry. I will never make it back to Collinwood before dark."

Dark…

**It was almost dark.**

Willie would have died right then and there if he didn't have his mounting horror to keep him alive. His stomach tossed like a ship lost at sea during a violent storm when his eyes landed on the clock in the drawing room. Fifteen minutes. He had about fifteen minutes to save her. Fifteen minutes to keep what happened to Maggie from happening to her. Fifteen minutes to get her as far away from the Old House and Barnabas Collins as he could.

_Barnabas is gonna be risin' soon! I gotta get her back to Collinwood before Barnabas wakes up! He can't see her! _

He had one chance to try and keep her from Barnabas and he knew that chance was in front of him. Once Barnabas saw her, it would all be over for her. He would see her and see what Willie saw. He would see Josette, just like he'd seen Josette in Maggie. Only it would be worse, because the innocent young woman in front of him looked more like Josette than Maggie ever did.

She was a perfect, living copy of the painting in the room upstairs.

And she had no memory…no name of her own.

Barnabas would think she was perfect. The perfect girl to become his Josette.

"I can get ya back before it gets too dark," Willie promised her then, fully intending to keep that promise. He frantically went to her and took her by the hand. He felt her stiffen, but she allowed him to lead her over to the doors and out onto the portico. He shut the doors securely behind him, as if they could stop Barnabas Collins from rising out of the coffin in the basement.

_If only…_

_There's no time. We gotta go. We gotta go now._

"See, I know my way through the woods," Willie said, as he practically pulled her off the portico and headed in the direction of Collinwood. He knew he couldn't get her to the mansion before nightfall, but he could get her far enough away from the Old House.

Far enough away from Barnabas.

"Do you work for the Collins family?" she asked him tightly. Her curiosity as well as her dismay at his hurried pace was obvious. But that couldn't be helped.

He was only trying to save her life.

"I work for Mr. Collins," he mumbled distractedly.

"I wish I could have met him tonight."

_No ya don't. Ya don't ever wanna meet Barnabas Collins. _

Willie could tell, even in his agitated state, that she meant it. He stopped his walking for a moment, determined to say something that would convince her not to not even think about meeting Barnabas. He had to put the idea out of her head.

"I doubt you'll get to meet him," Willie told her. "I'm sure once ya get your memory back, you'll wanna go home, and he's busy. He works a lot. Mostly he's gone during the day, but he's also gone on some nights, too. "

_Please, for your own sake, ya gotta believe me. I can't save ya once he sees ya._

"Oh."

Willie flinched at the disappointment on her face.

"Come on, this way's the easiest." He guided her through the gnarled trees and thick, over crowded bushes. "I'll walk with ya, and you'll get back there in no time."

"You are very kind, Mr. Loomis," she said with a small smile.

He was glad to see the smile. She didn't seem to be as frustrated with him as she had been, which was good. She wouldn't say anything bad about him to anyone at Collinwood that way.

That was all he needed, for one of the members of the Collins family to get suspicious. They didn't like him much, so it wouldn't take a lot to make them suspicious. He was sure that most of them thought he was up to something already, planning some scheme.

_They'd never invite Willie Loomis to dinner, but they welcome Barnabas with open arms…_

Despite that thought, Willie grinned nervously back at her, already feeling a bit better. He could look back and not see the Old House behind him anymore.

He had gotten her away from Barnabas.

_Yeah, for now…but what am I gonna say to Barnabas when I get back? "Oh, yeah, Barnabas, I had to take a girl that looks just like Josette back to Collinwood before it got dark"? That would go over great. Not that it matters what I say. I'm in for it no matter what excuse I come up with._

_And if she stays he's eventually gonna see her. Then all this will be for nothin'. He'll go up to Collinwood and that'll be it. I gotta convince her to leave. I gotta warn her. Maybe she'll listen. I gotta take the chance._

Willie let his mind drift, trying to come up with a plausible reason for her to leave Collinsport. He didn't want to just burst out that she was in danger. At best, she would think he was paranoid, and at worst, she would tell someone at Collinwood about his warning.

No, that wouldn't be the worst case scenario. Barnabas finding out about her would definitely qualify as the worst.

Without warning the girl came to a sudden halt, and Willie was so lost in his fear of Barnabas finding out that he narrowly avoided crashing into her.

"What's a matter?"

She didn't answer him. For several seconds, she just stood there with a bewildered expression, transfixed by something that Willie couldn't see. Emotions flashed across her face, but none of them stayed in place long enough for Willie to be sure of what they were. One thing was for sure though, he'd never thought it possible to see so many different emotions on someone's face in such a short period of time.

Fueled by both dread and curiosity, he followed her line of sight again.

_Wait a minute…if she's lookin' that way….that's where we came from. That's…_

Willie swallowed hard. If the trees and bushes were cleared away, she would have been looking straight back at the Old House. He shivered and glanced above to the sky and realized that it was pitch black.

Night had fallen.

_Barnabas is outta that coffin by now._

Willie gazed at her, and then in the direction of the Old House in alarm.

_Can she somehow sense- _

_Nah. _

"Ya okay?" he asked, eager to continue on for more reasons than he could count on one hand.

They didn't have much farther to go to get to Collinwood. The stately mansion was already visible in the distance up ahead. He would walk her up to the front doors, but he wouldn't go inside. He was in enough trouble with Barnabas, he would have to get back to the Old House and find some excuse for his absence.

Not that Barnabas would be satisfied with any excuse he came up with.

Knowing that made him fervently wish that he could find a way to flee, to never return to that house. Never face Barnabas again. He wouldn't have to hear the dogs howling, or be afraid of the dark anymore. He wished he could run and never look back.

_There ain't no point in wishing. Nothin' I wish for would ever come true. _

"It's nothing," she finally said softly. But he didn't miss her long and almost regretful look behind her before she shifted her eyes to Collinwood.

_If I didn't know any better, I'd swear she somehow senses Barnabas wakin' up. But she ain't got the marks on her neck. And he ain't seen her, 'cause if he did I would've known about it. She ain't under his power, so she couldn't sense him. She's just an ordinary girl who happens to look like Josette. Maggie was a normal girl before Barnabas got a hold of her. Maggie just looked like Josette. Not as much as this girl does, but what does it matter? _

_She ain't got no connection to Barnabas…and hopefully she never will._

He studied her in the darkness - her face and her hair, the delicate way she carried herself.

_It's insane how much she resembles Josette. There's even somethin' almost refined about her, kinda like Mrs. Stoddard._

Sometimes, she would notice him staring and give him another one of those small, uncomfortable smiles before she averted her eyes. He half expected her to snap at him, demand that he not stare. Maybe in another situation she would have, but Willie could tell that she was still preoccupied with whatever had gotten her attention back in the woods.

_What if it was Barnabas?_

Willie raked his hands through his hair and looked at her. Watching her made him curious about Josette.

Willie had thought about Josette du Pres a lot recently. He supposed it was because Barnabas was always searching for her, or a woman that he could make into her. He wondered what she was like and why Barnabas was so set on recreating her.

Josette had certainly been a beautiful woman. Willie had seen plenty of beautiful women in his time, but he had to admit that Josette was easily one of the prettiest he had ever laid eyes on. The kind of woman he would have pursued had he still been hanging around Jason, with no fear other than not getting the money that he sought, or not having a good time.

So Barnabas had good taste - but there had to be more to it than that. A man didn't just spend a hundred and some odd years pining away for a woman only because she was beautiful, did he?

No, there had to more to Barnabas's feelings. The way Barnabas droned on about Josette, there had to be something special about her.

_So many things I just don't get, like Josette ever lovin' Barnabas for one. She married Jeremiah. Why did she marry him if she loved Barnabas? And she ended up killin' herself rather than become a - become what Barnabas is. She probably hated him. She sure was afraid of him. _

_To just run over the cliff like that…to die that way… Only terror could've driven someone to do that._

_But why would Barnabas wanna hold on to someone who feared him? Maybe even hated him? Denial? Yeah, maybe it's denial. Maybe he just don't wanna believe she hated him. _

_Don't make no sense. None of it._

Sometimes, Willie cursed Josette du Pres for being so damned unforgettable. Maggie wouldn't have died, and he wouldn't have had to worry about the same thing happening to the girl that he was taking back to Collinwood, if Barnabas had forgotten Josette.

That was an unreasonable line of thinking and he knew it. When it came right down to it, Josette was just as much a victim as any of the other women that Barnabas had attacked and hurt.

_And it ain't her fault that Barnabas still can't get her outta his mind after a hundred years. Poor thing woulda turned over in her grave if she coulda seen what he did in her name. _

_What he did to Maggie…_

_I hope death's kinder to ya than life was, Maggie. Sometimes I wonder if death will be kind to me. _

_Will Willie Loomis find peace when he ain't breathin' no more?_

"Mr. Loomis, may I ask you something?" the girl implored him, taking him away from his thoughts of Maggie and death, at least for a while. They always seemed to come back to him though.

He realized for the first time all evening that he hadn't even asked her name, not that he expected her to know her true name. She'd said back in the Old House that she had no memory. Still, she had to call herself something.

"Sure," Willie said with a shrug. He didn't mind answering a question, as long as it didn't have anything to do with Barnabas. He hated trying to come up with answers then, because they weren't really answers.

They were lies, and he wasn't very good at lying anymore. He used to be a decent liar. He'd learned from the best, after all. Jason had always had a lie ready to put to good use, and he'd always let Willie in on his schemes. Willie had been impressed on more than one occasion by Jason's ability to lie.

Then he had "met" Barnabas.

Jason had been a skilled liar, but Barnabas mastered the skill to perfection. He lied to his family with a smoothness that Jason never managed. Sure, Jason could be charming, but he'd also had a shady way about him. It was in his eyes and attitude, even though he'd been a good pretender. Jason had been good enough to get away with it, but that didn't change the fact that a lot of people could tell it was an act. Barnabas was all charm and sincerity. It baffled Willie whenever he watched Barnabas with the Collins family, and how well Barnabas concealed the truth about himself and his true nature.

If Willie hadn't broken the chains around the coffin on that cold night months ago, he would have been convinced that Barnabas really _was_ a distant cousin from England.

_I'm lettin' my mind wander..._

He turned his attention back to the girl beside him. She hadn't yet asked him her question and seemed to be uncomfortable with doing it. His frayed nerves started to unravel even more than they already had. He was surprised sometimes that there was anything left of him. There were only so many threads that could come undone before he would be shredded completely, at least that was what he thought.

Maybe he would get lucky and she would decide not to ask him. He had the impression that he wouldn't want to answer it anyway. But then a look of resolve crossed her face and she spoke up.

"When you first saw me, you accused me of haunting you. Why?"

_Definitely didn't wanna answer that._

Willie tried to think fast. He used to be able to think on his feet pretty well, which was yet another influence of Jason's. All that had changed. The fear and anxiety he battled with on a constant basis had ruined most of his mind's previous quickness. He was usually too scared to think straight most of the time anymore.

It occurred to him offhand how much more useful he would be to Barnabas if Barnabas didn't threaten him all the time.

"Well…I, uh, ya reminded me of someone," Willie stuttered out. "She was someone I knew, that's all. She died recently, so seein' ya made me think of her."

The corners of the girl's full lips curved downward, and he realized that he might have to do better than that.

"Was her name Maggie?"

The inquiry was innocent, but Willie was forced to draw in a breath of air that he suddenly and severely lacked.

"How'd ya learn about Maggie?" he asked, both curious and nervous about her knowledge. He hoped curiosity was all that he outwardly displayed. It wouldn't be good for her to see his nervousness.

"Victoria mentioned her name on my first day at Collinwood. I know very little about her. I only know that she died recently and it's believed that her death is connected to the horrible attacks Mrs. Stoddard warned me of. It was very distressing to hear about them."

"Yeah," Willie mumbled in agreement. His heart sank all the way down to his feet, the way it always did when Maggie and the local attacks entered a conversation.

"What did you mean when you said to haunt someone else?"

Willie shrugged helplessly and searched for the right excuse. For once, he found it.

"I just meant that she should haunt the one who did that to her. Ya know, whoever it was that kidnapped," Willie paused to steady the words before he released them, "and killed her."

"Oh. I see," the girl said softly.

Her face was shadowed, but she seemed to believe him. They walked the rest of the way to Collinwood in what he thought was a companionable silence. He led her to the main doors and glanced around anxiously.

"Well, I'll just let ya go on in. They're probably lookin' for ya, and I gotta be gettin' back anyway. I know it ain't any of my business what your plans are and all, but I'd like to give ya some advice," he told her. "That is, if ya don't mind hearin' it," he added quickly.

"You've helped me so much tonight, of course I would hardly mind," she said with a smile. "I'm very grateful to you."

"Well, now, don't ya take this the wrong way, but I wouldn't stay here in Collinsport any longer than ya have to. I'd leave as soon as ya can, for your own sake."

_Please listen. Please get outta here. Get outta Collinwood. Get outta Collinsport. Get outta the state. Get outta the damned country. Go somewhere far away where Barnabas won't ever see ya, or even know ya exist. Go before it's too late._

"Because of the attacks?"

"Yeah, 'cause of the attacks. The police ain't got any leads, and it's just gettin more dangerous. I'd tell anyone the same, no matter where it was in town that they were stayin'. Ya gotta understand that."

"I will consider it. Thank you for your concern, Mr. Loomis."

He breathed a sigh of intense relief and grinned.

"Just call me Willie. If ya want to."

He didn't know why he said that. If she heeded his warning and left town like he was hoping, it wouldn't matter what she called him because she would certainly never see him again.

"Willie," she repeated in a quiet voice, and he was rewarded with another pretty smile.

"Well, goodnight." He nodded to her, then started to head back into the woods. He'd forgotten all about asking her name. If her voice hadn't stopped him, he would never have known what it was.

"How truly terrible of me! I just realized that I've not told you my name, or at least the name that I've chosen for myself. If you should see me again, you may call me Josette. Goodnight, Willie."

With that, she turned from him, opened the doors of Collinwood, and slipped gracefully through them without a backwards glance.

He stood there in astonishment, staring open mouthed at the doors. Even knowing the possible consequences of making Barnabas continue to wait for him back at the Old House couldn't bring him out of the paralyzed state he was in.

_Josette…she just said her name was Josette! _

_But it ain't her real name. It ain't. But what if……what if it is!_

Had he encountered a ghost after all?

A _living _ghost of a woman long dead?

* * *

Barnabas could no longer remember the pleasure of waking to the warmth of the sun on his face, nor could he remember the delight of doing so in a spacious bed with his body swathed in soft blankets. 

Those luxuries belonged to normal men, and it had been so very long since he had walked in their midst as anything other than a shadow.

He awakened to the twilight in the hollow blackness of his oak coffin, down in the dank, dust ridden cellar of the Old House where not even the moon could cast its nebulous rays upon him. He could never bear to linger inside of his wooden prison, so he immediately raised his hands to lift the lid and free himself from it - at least until the sun ascended into the sky again, and it would come time for him to return to the land of the dead.

As he pressed his palms to the sleek satin of the coffin lid's inner lining, he became aware of a strange sensation that instantly disturbed him.

A heavy weight seemed to press into his chest and restrain him, as though hands were holding him down, forcing him to remain lying in his coffin.

_What is happening? Why can I not….why…._

His distress increased swiftly, and he was unable to suppress the sliver of fear that surfaced inside of him. An ancient anxiety that he had not experienced since the first long nights he had remained a captive of the coffin overwhelmed his senses. The unforeseen, unexplainable loss of power sent him spiraling into a state of something dangerously close to panic.

"Willie!"

He barely recognized the sound of his own voice. It was twisted and torn with rage and terror.

_What is wrong with me! _

For an undeterminable amount of time, he struggled with all of his supernatural strength against the invisible weight, barely able to move. He could only claw uselessly at the lining above him.

Then the weight was lifted as suddenly as it had come.

He threw the coffin lid open almost violently in his effort to escape from it, as well as from whatever it had been that had taken such complete control over him. He stood beside the coffin and placed his hands on its smooth surface to steady himself. His eyes searched the darkness for a sign of danger. Every one of his senses went on alert.

He saw and sensed nothing but a lit candelabra and silence.

_What was it that occurred? Did it occur? Could I have imagined it?_

_No, it was real. I did not imagine it. That unbearable weight, the inability to move. It was real. It really happened to me. _

_How? Why?_

Barnabas could not repress the shudder that shot through him. He still felt the insufferable, frightening sensation of helplessness.

He did not relish being helpless, nor did he relish losing control.

For an instant, it was almost as if he had relived that nightmarish moment from long ago when he had awakened at sunset and realized that he had not been destroyed, but chained inside of his coffin for all eternity.

His body, even his soul, had seemed chained.

Barnabas was well acquainted with chains.

He had spent one hundred and seventy-two years envisioning the chains that had encircled his coffin as he'd remained inside of it, enclosed in the secret room of the mausoleum. Sealed away, trapped in the torment of the mercy his father had thought he had shown his only son. But Barnabas had been shown no mercy from Joshua Collins. If he had, then Barnabas would never have awakened each evening at dusk to spend the long hours of night agonizing over all that he had lost and would never have again.

His kind, warm hearted mother.

His innocent, sweet little sister, Sarah.

His beloved, beautiful Josette.

Imprisoned for what he had thought would be forever, memories both beautiful and ugly assaulted him. They were all he'd had in the darkness of his tomb. They had reached out to him with their intangible hands, sometimes caressing and soothing him, sometimes tearing and punishing him.

Then Willie Loomis had dared to desecrate his family's grave, and by doing so, released him into the world once again.

He knew that Willie recalled every moment of that night with horrifying clarity and would be surprised to know that Barnabas himself did not.

Oh yes, he recalled the protesting groan of the coffin lid as it had been opened. He recalled Willie's satisfied smirk before that smirk had rapidly evolved into an expression of sheer terror. For the first time in over a century, Barnabas had seen a sight other than the inner lining of his coffin- the frightened face of Willie Loomis. He had savagely seized Willie by the throat.

That was the last thing he could remember before gazing down at a crying, cowering Willie, who had been sprawled at his feet on the stone floor and bleeding profusely from one wrist.

He had fed from Willie, but he had no recollection of sinking his fangs into Willie's flesh, nor any remembrance of the vile, yet deeply gratifying taste of blood as it flowed from Willie's veins into his welcoming mouth.

He assumed that a hunger induced madness had overtaken him, deprived him of his senses, and left him only with the primal instinct of the starving creature within.

Later, he had picked up from the floor the chains that had bound him in the coffin and clenched them tightly in his pale, cold hands before letting them fall to the ground in a clutter once more.

His father should have destroyed him. He had _wanted_ his father to destroy him. But his father had not fulfilled his wish, and instead of resting in peace with his family, he had found himself in a time far removed from his own. He'd vowed then that he would continue on in his abhorrent condition, as regrettable as it was.

And so he had entered the world of nineteen sixty-seven, desperately determined to regain what he had lost.

Barnabas slowly climbed the basement stairs and entered the drawing room wearily. Willie was not in sight. Barnabas could not detect his presence anywhere within the walls around him.

But it was another presence, a very familiar presence, that rendered him immobile for the second time that night.

_Her_ presence.

**Josette's.**

In the drawing room. In the air. All around him. Overwhelming him.

"Josette?"

It was both a question and a plea in nothing more than a whisper to the surrounding silence.

_Josette……!_


	10. Conversations

**Chapter 9: _Conversations _**

Carolyn took another quick glance into the mirror in her room before she flounced down the hall to the bedroom her mother had given to Josette. She knocked once on the door, then poked her head inside.

"Josette, may I come in?"

"Of course, Carolyn," Josette said. She turned to the door for a brief minute to give Carolyn a smile, then returned her attention to the full length mirror she was standing in front of. She was wearing the flattering knee length, sleeveless red dress and the matching red heels that Carolyn had recommended to her at the store. Her hair was pinned neatly on her head.

Carolyn watched as Josette tugged at the hem of her dress and ran her hands awkwardly over her sides, and could tell that she could use some extra words of confidence. She moved to stand beside her and nodded her head appraisingly.

"You look fabulous in that dress."

Josette blushed.

"Thank you, Carolyn."

"Don't thank me," Carolyn shrugged. "I only speak the truth. However, I'm going to make a suggestion. You should wear your hair down. I don't think I've ever seen you wear it down, and I think it would look wonderful."

Josette reached up to her hair with one hand and let it linger by the pins that held it in place. She looked uncertain.

"Do you really think so?"

"I do," Carolyn said with a nod. "I think every girl needs to let her hair down once and awhile." She smiled mischievously, then added, "In more ways that one."

Josette stared into the mirror indecisively for a moment, appearing to consider Carolyn's remark. Then with careful hands, she unpinned her hair and let the curls cascade down her shoulders.

"You have gorgeous hair," Carolyn commented wistfully, twirling a strand of her own silky blonde hair around her fingers. Her hair was simple, straight and would barely hold a single curl.

"I love the color of your hair," Josette told her. "It's so light and -"

She stopped speaking suddenly, and Carolyn saw that a frown had formed on her face.

"Josette, what is it? Did you remember something?"

"Perhaps in a way I did," Josette said. "For an instant, I seemed to recall speaking with someone. A woman with golden hair only a bit darker than yours. I could almost picture her, but the image is gone from my mind now."

"At least that's something though. That's a good sign."

Carolyn thought that maybe it would be best if she were to remain optimistic. It seemed possible that Josette could regain her memory after all. Even the smallest memories could lead somewhere.

"Perhaps," Josette murmured, but Carolyn noticed that she didn't look as happy as she would have expected her to be.

"Well, it's a good thing Mr. Hamilton decided to be fashionably late this evening, or else we wouldn't have had the time to get ready."

"I am sorry about that, Carolyn," Josette apologized yet again.

"It wasn't your fault. You can't help that you got lost in the woods. We're just glad that nothing happened to you."

"I should have listened to Mrs. Johnson," Josette insisted. "She warned me that I should let someone accompany me and I disregarded her. I did not want to bother anyone, and truthfully, I wished to be alone for a while. My dream upset me and I thought that being alone would help me gather my thoughts."

Carolyn thought back on Jason McGuire, his blackmailing of her mother, and the revelation that her mother had thought she'd killed her father and buried him in the basement. She had needed that time away from Collinwood then, alone with only her mind. She probably would have gone mad if she had stayed in the house on the night of her mother's awful almost-wedding to Jason.

She sometimes wondered what had happened to Jason McGuire. He had disappeared from Collinsport without taking any of his things. Not that she actually cared. Whatever fate he had met in the end didn't concern her in the slightest. He was a despicable, heartless man.

"You don't have to explain yourself, Josette, it's perfectly understandable. I recently left the house without telling anyone where I had gone. I'd been going through a very bad time. I walked the along the beach for hours. It helped me sort out my feelings. If I hadn't taken the time to think and reflect on things, I'm not sure I would have gotten over everything that had happened."

"I'm grateful that you understand so well."

"Do you want to talk about the dream?" she asked her new friend with an upbeat smile, determined to leave the past where it belonged. "Talking can help, or at least that's what I'm told."

"Maybe it would. Even so, could we possibly do it at another time? There's something I wish to ask you."

There was a slight urgency in Josette's voice that caught Carolyn's attention.

"Sure we can. And you can ask me anything you would like."

"I wanted to ask you about Willie Loomis. No one at Collinwood has told me anything about him. It was not until I met him at the Old House that I even knew he existed. To be honest, I thought it peculiar because so many here have mentioned your cousin, and Willie told me that he works for him."

"Well, no one in the family cares much for Willie," Carolyn admitted with a sigh. "Before Barnabas hired him to work at the Old House, he was not a very nice man, and that's putting it politely. He did and said some horrible things to a lot of people here at Collinwood and in town. He seems different now though, I'll give him that. Barnabas must have changed him for the better somehow, though I can't imagine how he accomplished such a feat. Willie's actually very respectful, if a bit nervous all of the time. He's not at all like he used to be."

"He is very nervous," Josette said. "In fact, he was nervous to the point of being frightened."

"Really? What makes you say that?"

Carolyn knew that Willie was always fidgety and on edge. When she thought about it, she could see why Josette would label him as "frightened". At times, he really did appear to be.

_How odd._

"He accused me of being a ghost when he saw me in the Old House drawing room. He was terrified of me at first. When he walked me back to Collinwood, he explained to me that I had reminded him of the girl that was killed, Maggie Evans. I suppose that makes sense, but I also received the impression that he did not want me remaining in the Old House. He seemed extremely eager to take me to Collinwood. He practically pulled me through the doors and out into the woods."

"He accused you of being a ghost…." Carolyn repeated, genuinely taken aback by Josette's story.

She hadn't realized that Willie would be so affected by Maggie's death. He hadn't had much contact with Maggie that she knew of, except for an occasional encounter here and there. She didn't think Maggie meant anything to him, so for him to get that upset over a reminder of her…..

_It's just so odd!_

Though she couldn't figure out a reason for it, his behavior towards Josette didn't surprise her. He had acted much in the same way when she and Victoria had gone to see the restoration work one afternoon several weeks earlier. He'd been incredibly intent on making sure that they didn't linger around the house for very long. It confused her then and it still did. Barnabas never seemed to mind anyone from the family coming over and even said that they could do so at anytime, so why would Willie mind so much?

_Perhaps the more important question is whether or not there's a connection between his reaction to Maggie's death and his not wanting Josette to linger in the Old House…._

_What am I thinking of? Of course there isn't a connection. Willie's strange and he hasn't always been a good man, but he isn't a killer. _

_I need to stop letting my mind run away with me. I let that happen earlier when Vicki brought up Josette's resemblance to Josette Collins and that led me to hide the book without showing it to Josette. _

_I still can't come up with a reason for doing that..._

"He didn't do or say anything to you that was offensive, did he?" Carolyn asked.

"Oh, no, not at all. He was very nice," Josette replied very quickly in his defense. "I was so thankful that he volunteered to walk me to Collinwood. I would never have found my own way back, especially in the dark."

"Mother and I were afraid something had happened to you. The attacks have only happened at night so far and…." Carolyn let her voice drift off into silence. She hadn't meant to bring the subject up with Josette. There was no need to scare her since she had made it back to Collinwood safely.

"I suppose I'm fortunate. Wandering alone in the woods near nightfall…. I could have been attacked as well," Josette said.

Carolyn could hear the fear behind her words.

"Josette, it doesn't matter. You're fine, and it's all over now," Carolyn assured her, then pressed her hands together. "Let's make a vow not to worry so much about it, and to just concentrate on having fun tonight. Does that sound all right?"

"Yes, it sounds fine."

Carolyn returned Josette's smile with one of her own, and then glanced at the clock on the table beside the bed.

"Mr. Hamilton's lateness isn't fashionable anymore," she muttered impatiently. "Something must be holding him up. I wonder if I should call the Blue Whale and find out if Burke knows anything. By the time he picks us up, the night will be over! Burke's probably livid by now."

"I'm sure he has a valid excuse for being so late."

"I've noticed something about you, Josette.You seem to assume the best about people," Carolyn said with a grin. "Left only up to me, he would get an earful as soon as he walked in those doors downstairs."

Josette laughed.

"I'm only basing that opinion on my brief interaction with him. I do not think it in his character to make us wait."

"True," Carolyn acknowledged. "He doesn't seem like the type. Still, you never really know about someone. Sometimes the person you think you know, you don't really know at all. I'd better go downstairs and phone the Blue Whale."

* * *

A part of Josette wanted to follow Carolyn downstairs to the drawing room and observe Carolyn's call, but she would have been far too embarrassed, and so she remained seated on her bed. 

Her dream had roused her from sleep early, so she'd spent the better part of the morning exploring Collinwood. She did not venture beyond the main section of the house, but had roamed the halls and rooms, studying every detail in each of them.

Though she could not begin to imagine why, one of the things that had entranced her the most had been in the drawing room. She had simply stared at the telephone for a time, reluctant to pick it up for fear of doing something wrong, such as breaking it. Then she had recalled how Carolyn had lifted the top piece of the telephone into her hands. With a small burst of bravery, Josette had done the same. She had held it in front of her and struggled to comprehend why an ordinary object seemed to be so unnatural to her.

She thought that perhaps if she watched Carolyn use it one more time, she would learn how to use it as well, or even remember how to use it.

_I had to have used one before. They are so common here. Everyone knows how to use them, even the housekeeper._

She was startled out of her reverie by David, who stood in the doorway with a huge, infectious grin on his face.

"Hello, Josette!" he greeted her excitedly. "I was hoping you were still here. I wanted to show you something. Can I come in?"

"You certainly can, David."

She smiled, despite her preoccupation with her missing past. She found David to be a charming, intelligent child, and he seemed to like her a great deal. In fact, when he was not taking lessons with Victoria, he often sought her out.

He had never explained why he'd grown so fond of her, but she suspected that it had something to do with that first day she had met him, when he'd come into her room and looked at her dress. She had not forgotten the way he seemed to be on the verge of telling her something, something that he may have considered important. She was still rather curious, but she never pressed him. She merely enjoyed his company. He was usually enthusiastic and cheerful, and it diverted her attention away from her troubles.

"You look very pretty. I've never seen you with your hair down before," David said. "Carolyn said the two of you are going to the Blue Whale to meet Burke and Vicki."

"We are indeed. And thank you for that wonderful compliment."

David had said exactly the same thing Carolyn had about her hair, but there was something about the _way_ that David had said it that made it seem as though he meant it in a completely different context.

"I don't think you'll like it there," David informed her.

Josette raised her eyebrows at his curious comment.

"Oh? What makes you think that?" she asked, genuinely interested in his answer.

"Oh, I don't know. It just doesn't seem like the type of place you would like to go," he said with a shrug.

"Well, I suppose we shall see after tonight, won't we?" She folded her hands in her lap and repositioned herself on the bed so that she was facing him. "Now, what is that you wanted to show me?"

"My drawing," David announced proudly. He unfolded a white piece of paper and handed it to her.

She stared down at a rather detailed sketch of a woman in a gown not unlike the one she had stored away in a drawer on the other side of the room. It was long sleeved with a train that flowed along the ground. It took her a moment to recognize that it was a wedding gown, and then she noticed that the woman wore a veil that obscured her hair and face.

There was nothing around the woman, so there was no setting for Josette to place her in, and yet she felt that the woman depicted in the drawing seemed to be sad.

_In mourning._

"I showed it to Vicki earlier today and asked her if she thought that the woman was happy. She said that the woman was getting married and that it was a celebration, so she should be happy. I wanted to show it to you and hear what you thought. What do you think, Josette?"

Josette gazed thoughtfully at the picture, then gave voice to the images of a woman waiting for a life she would never live that echoed inside of her mind.

"I would say that she is stricken with sorrow and loss. That she is in mourning for the man for whom she wore the wedding gown, and that her only true wedding was the one in her dreams. Her love is gone, and she is not much more than a ghost herself, haunting the landscape of a lonely world. A remnant of time past."

She had not planned on being so honest with David about her feelings of the woman he'd sketched, and was quite confounded by her rather morbid description. For a reason unknown, his drawing resonated very deeply with her. The softly shaded lines on the paper seemed to etch themselves sharply onto her soul. She felt connected to the woman in the wedding gown.

The woman in mourning for what she had lost.

"David, may I keep this? You do not have to let me keep it if you would rather have it, but I would very much like to keep it."

Josette waited patiently for David's answer, not at all sure of what he would say. He appeared surprised at first, then he smiled and nodded his head vigorously.

"Sure! I made it for you! I'm glad you like it and want to keep it. And I liked the way you described the woman. That's how I wanted her to appear - sad, I mean." He looked at the clock and scowled. "I better get back to my room before Aunt Elizabeth finds out I'm not in bed and comes looking for me. Goodnight, Josette."

He bounded out of the room before she could even open her lips in reply.

She looked at the picture again, more positive than ever that there was something David wanted to say and either could not, or would not, say it. She gently refolded the paper and placed it on her vanity.

Staring self-consciously at her reflection in the mirror, she wondered why she would be more comfortable in the white wedding gown in David's drawing than in the short red dress that she was currently wearing.

_Did I lose someone? _

_Someone for whom I wore a wedding gown?

* * *

_

When Willie returned to the Old House, he found Barnabas in Josette's room.

Barnabas's eyes were glued so intently to the portrait of Josette in the antique wedding gown that it almost seemed as if he thought he could bring her back to life with his dark gaze.

_Maybe he really can. Maybe he has already. Maybe that pretty girl I just walked back to Collinwood really is Josette du Pres. She said her name was Josette. She sure looks like Josette. Maybe she is Josette… But it ain't possible! Nobody's got that kind of power, not even Barnabas! It ain't possible to bring a woman back that's been dead for that long! It's just a coincidence that she said her name was Josette. And it ain't gonna matter anyway, 'cause if she listens to me, she'll leave town and Barnabas will never know about her. _

_I can't let him know. I can't make him suspicious. I gotta face him and keep calm. I gotta do it for Maggie, to make up for not bein' able to save her . I gotta do it for the girl, whatever her real name is. And I gotta do it for Josette du Pres herself, 'cause she wouldn't want anymore girls dyin' in her name._

Willie stood fearfully in the doorway to Josette's room and tried to work up the nerve to speak.

He fully expected Barnabas to punish him. He had prepared himself for the worst during his walk back to the Old House through the woods. He'd even taken his time because he figured the damage was already done. Barnabas had given him strict orders to always be in the house during the daylight hours unless he was given something to do.

Barnabas didn't like not knowing where Willie was, and always expected Willie to be in the Old House when he woke up.

"I am vulnerable while I am in that coffin, Willie. As much as I despise doing so, I must rely on you to guard me during the day when I am helpless," Barnabas had told him in a tone so bitter that it had made him feel chilled for hours afterward.

Barnabas never liked to admit that he could be vulnerable. He saw vulnerability as weakness.

_I bet he don't know it, but he's lookin' pretty vulnerable right now, starin' up at the portrait like that. _

Willie had gotten to know Barnabas's moods pretty well, which wasn't all that surprising since his life had come to depend on them. He had to know when to talk and when to be quiet.

Especially when to be quiet.

Lately though, Willie had noticed changes in Barnabas. He rarely visited Collinwood anymore, and spent a large portion of the night hours brooding silently in his chair in the Old House drawing room, or pacing in Josette's room and staring at the things that reminded him of her. He seemed increasingly distracted, and even withdrawn. He hadn't gone into town nearly as much as of late, and as a result, there had been no recent news of women being attacked.

While Willie was extremely thankful for that, at the same time, it only heightened his anxiety and sense of foreboding.

Everything was too silent, too still. It was the calm before the storm, and he knew the storm was coming. It was only a matter of time before it hit.

_I just hope that girl up at Collinwood ain't anywhere near here when it does._

"So I see you have decided to return at last."

Barnabas's voice cut into Willie's thoughts the way a knife would slice into a man's skin, splitting them apart so seamlessly that Willie could barely recall how they had originally been pieced together.

Barnabas had spoken to him without removing his eyes from Josette's portrait, and Willie's mouth opened briefly, then closed. He was unable to find the right words, or any words at all. There was nothing he could say that Barnabas would believe. There was no use trying defend himself.

Barnabas finally turned away from the portrait and fixed Willie with a glare that made a tremor tear through his body.

"Have you lost the ability to speak? Pity, as I would have liked to hear the excuse for your absence. However, since you cannot provide it to me, I shall provide a most invaluable warning to you. The next evening that I awaken to find you mysteriously missing from this house, you will not live to see another. Is that understood?"

Willie nodded and swallowed back his fear.

"Good. Leave this room."

Willie didn't have to be told twice. He hurried from the room and down the stairs without looking back, too relieved that Barnabas hadn't punished him to spare much of a thought as to why.

He reached the bottom of the stairs and was about to go into the drawing room when he noticed that the basement door was hanging wide open. He knew that no one could have gotten into the house while he had been upstairs talking to Barnabas, which meant that Barnabas had to have left the door open when he had come up from the basement at sunset.

_Weird. Barnabas ain't never left the door open before. Maybe I should go down there and make sure everythin's alright._

Willie crept carefully down the stairs. The few candles that were lit didn't give off nearly enough light and he paused to let his eyes adjust to the darkness. Once he could adequately see he glanced about the cavernous room, and then at the coffin that sat in the center of it.

Willie had never been bothered by coffins before. He hadn't been scared of them the way that many people were. A coffin had been nothing more to him than a wooden box that a person was buried in when they died.

Like everything else in his life, that had changed with Barnabas.

He would never look at a coffin the same way again.

He approached Barnabas's coffin with dread, and also a small bit of fascination. He had seen coffins before, but none of them were like the one in front of him. The wood was smoother, carved more intricately. No one he'd ever known had been buried in a coffin like the one that belonged to Barnabas.

Barnabas had come from a family with money. A lot of money. It was Willie's thirst for that money that had brought him to the miserable life he was currently leading. He had always been poor. When Jason had come along, Willie had went with him willingly. Jason was always after someone else's fortune, and Willie had been fine with that because back then he'd thought that there was nothing worse in the world than being poor.

_Shows ya what I knew… I was so stupid. So damned stupid. _

Willie let a ragged sigh escape from his throat, and looked back at the stairs. He didn't want to spend any more time in the basement. It reminded him of the mausoleum on Eagle Hill. Discovery and death. And obviously nothing was wrong, or he would have noticed something-

He did notice something.

He stilled, not quite knowing what to make of it.

The lid of the coffin wasn't sealed, but was opened slightly, just enough for Willie to see what looked to be a piece of shiny, tangled fabric hanging down on the outside. He frowned and stared at it curiously before he pulled the lid all the way open.

His eyes widened when they landed on the inside of the coffin.

The satin lining was shredded into torn and tattered strips, as though shaking, frantic hands had raked and clawed at it over and over. He could even make out long, thin scratches that were deeply embedded into the wood.

_What happened? Why did Barnabas do that?_

He must have said his thoughts aloud, because Barnabas answered him.

"As you can see, dusk was rather…difficult for me this evening. I awakened the same as I have every night, but I could not rise from this coffin. A force that I do not understand overpowered me, kept laying inside of it. I called for you. I _screamed_, but you did not come because you were not here."

Barnabas paced the length of the cellar the way an animal would its cage. His voice was low and cold, but for a moment there was a slight crack in it, one that most people wouldn't even catch.

But Willie wasn't most people. For better or worse, and usually it was for worse, Willie knew Barnabas. That moment was all it took for him to realize just how shaken up Barnabas was. He could even _see_ it in the way Barnabas moved, how he kept his eyes from his coffin.

_He's actually afraid... _

"But that don't make no sense, Barnabas. What coulda done that to ya? It ain't never happened to ya before, right?"

"Of course it hasn't, Willie!" Barnabas paused in mid-stride to snap at him.

"Barnabas," Willie began haltingly, almost too terrified to say what he was about to. "Ain't it possible that it didn't happen at all, that ya….I don't know…" he faltered.

"Imagined it?" Barnabas finished Willie's sentence with fury in his eyes. "Are implying that I have gone mad?"

Willie backed away from Barnabas, using the coffin to place a useless distance between them. It was a pointless action and he knew it. If Barnabas was going to attack him, the distance wouldn't matter.

"Now I ain't sayin' that at all, Barnabas," Willie said hurriedly. His heart raced in his chest, pounded hard enough that he wondered if Barnabas could hear it from where he stood. "It's just…well, a lotta things have been happenin' lately, that's all. I mean, things like Maggie, and the little girl, Sarah….all of it's bound to get to ya, ya know?"

Willie saw Barnabas's jaw clench and his narrowed eyes grow even darker than he would have thought possible, and swallowed hard.

_I probably shouldn't a mentioned Maggie, and I definitely shouldn't a mentioned Sarah. I shouldn't a mentioned that he's goin' crazy either. Sometimes I think I'm crazy, or I would think before I just come out and say somethin' like that!_

_It's a good thing I didn't mention that I know about Josette's grave bein' gone…._

"I assure you, Willie, that I am not mad. I must caution you not to propose such a proposterous and insulting thing again, if you value what is left of your pitiful existence."

"I won't," Willie whispered, wishing he hadn't said anything at all. He wished he hadn't even noticed the basement door being open. He wasn't sure how much more of his own fear he could withstand.

Too much had happened too fast. Finding the girl in the house, hearing that she called herself Josette, Barnabas being upset about the coffin….

Something occurred to Willie then, something strange that still made some sense to him.

_Barnabas said he felt like somethin' was holdin' him down, keepin' him trapped in the coffin even after he woke up. That was when I was takin' the girl back to Collinwood. Was someone doin' that to Barnabas to give me time to get her away from here? To keep him from seein' her?_

_It coulda been Sarah. She came to Maggie when Barnabas had her locked up down here. Maybe she didn't want anythin' to happen to another girl._

Willie didn't know much about Sarah Collins other than that she was a ghost, but one thing he knew for sure was that Barnabas had cared for her, genuinely _loved_ her - something that still had the ability to surprise him. He would never forget the way Barnabas had talked about her in the mausoleum the night they had buried Jason's body.

_He might kill me for suggesting that Sarah would do that to him…_

He watched as Barnabas finally gazed down at the coffin. He didn't miss the fearful uncertainty as it crossed Barnabas's face for a single second, only to disappear and be replaced by the emotionless mask that Willie knew so well.

It was the first time though, that he could see through that mask so easily.

He averted his gaze to the coffin, and then to the walls.

Out of the corner of his eye Willie saw Barnabas turned away from the coffin as though he couldn't stand the sight of it any longer.

They lingered there in the cellar in silence. Willie was too nervous to say anything, or even to walk up the stairs. In order to get to them, he would have to pass by Barnabas, who stood there facing them as still as the stone graves on Eagle Hill.

"After I was able to free myself, I went into the drawing room," Barnabas said suddenly in barely more than a murmur. Willie had to strain to hear him. "I sensed her presence, Willie. I sensed her presence so strongly that I am certain she was there. She was there when I was trapped inside of my coffin, struggling to escape."

"Who?" Willie asked in confusion, startled that Barnabas was talking again.

"Josette."

**Josette**.

Willie's stomach dropped down to the bottom of his feet and rolled like waves did in the ocean. He wanted to pretend he hadn't heard Barnabas speak _that_ name, but he couldn't manage it. Pretending was too much work. His heart was hammering, his head was beginning to ache, and his stomach showed no signs of calming.

"Ya know that ain't possible, Barnabas," he muttered, after he'd mustered up the courage to speak.

"Are you so certain, Willie?" Barnabas turned and sent him a withering, hardened stare that seemed to soften ever so slowly. "I would not have thought it possible for little Sarah to come back, and yet I cannot ignore that she may have done just that. Why should Josette be any different?"

Willie shook his head and ran sweaty hands through his hair.

"Barnabas, Josette killed herself. Why would she wanna come back here to -" Willie stopped himself just in time and thought of a better way to phrase his question, "this house?"

Willie was aware of the risk he was taking, but he had to do something, anything, to keep Barnabas from thinking about the presence he had sensed in the drawing room.

The presence that could only belong to the girl.

The girl with no other name but that of the one person whose name placed her life in danger.

The name of _Josette_.

"Willie, I no longer wish to discuss it."

Barnabas's tone left no room for further discussion, but Willie couldn't help himself. In his desperation, he was unable to keep the words from tumbling past his lips.

"Josette's gone, Barnabas, she's dead! She wouldn't wanna come back, 'cause she killed herself to get away! Whatever ya sensed, it couldn't a been her!"

Willie squeezed his eyes shut and waited to die. He waited to hear Barnabas approach him. He waited to feel those cold, familiar hands lock themselves into a steel grip around his throat. He waited to breathe his final breath.

He heard nothing. He felt nothing. Each breath came as easily as the last.

He opened his eyes to find Barnabas staring at him with an expression of intense hatred, rising rage -

And utter misery.

"Go, Willie. Go and leave me alone."

Willie Loomis knew an order when he heard one.

The one he had just received sounded more like a plea.


	11. Faces From the Past

**Chapter 10: _Faces From the Past_**

"Oh, Burke, you should've called Collinwood as soon as Frank left like he asked you to. Carolyn and Josette have probably been wondering what happened to him all evening!" Victoria rebuked him as he returned to their table from the phone in the Blue Whale, and though she gave him what he knew was at best a half-hearted glare, her eyes were bright as they met his.

"Well, they know now. What can I say in my defense, other than confess to being completely distracted by the amazing woman sitting across from me?"

She blushed and he smiled. He decided that he could see that blush on her face every day for the rest of his life and never tire of it for a second.

Hopefully he would get the chance to. One word was all that it would take for him to have that chance. One word from her lips would make him the happiest he had ever been and would possibly ever be. He'd promised to give her time and he would keep that promise, but he would wait anxiously to hear the answer to the question he had asked her only an hour before. He would wait to hear the word that would change his life.

Y_es._

He would marry her and they would start a new life together. A life where they would leave the past behind and look only to the future. There would be no more reflection of his time in prison, and she would finally have the family that she had always wanted. She would be Mrs. Burke Devlin, and then she could take care of her own children instead of someone else's. He had never dreamed that he would ever want such simple pleasures, but then Victoria had come along. Suddenly he dreamed of her instead of revenge, and shared happiness instead of personal satisfaction.

Victoria Winters had changed him in a way he could never have imagined, and he found that he liked the change more and more with each passing day he spent with her.

"Poor, Frank." Victoria's voice drew him away from his musings and placed him firmly back in the present. "He seemed a bit flustered over the time it took for him to get his car to the mechanic's shop."

"He still thinks he's in the city," Burke chuckled. "I warned him a couple of days ago to get his car looked at because if something were to happen to it he couldn't expect the fast service he's used to, but he didn't listen to me. He can be stubborn."

Victoria's eyes were full of mirth as she looked at him.

"Can he? He reminds me of someone else I know."

Burke raised an eyebrow and covered her hand with his where it rested on the tabletop.

"Someone you love, despite his penchant for stubbornness, am I right?"

"You're right," she said with a laugh, then her expression grew serious. "I wanted to ask you earlier, but it slipped my mind. Have you found out anything about Josette? Mrs. Stoddard said you were still looking into it."

Burke sighed. He hadn't brought up the subject of Josette with anyone but Elizabeth, even though he knew both Victoria and Frank were curious as to whether or not he had discovered any clues that would lead them to her true identity. There wasn't much for him to bring up. He'd had his best contacts digging around for several days and none of them had found a single thing. Not in Collinsport. Not in any of the neighboring towns. He'd told them to widen their search to the state, but had not received a single reply from them yet.

Burke was certainly puzzled by the lack of reports from his contacts. They worked diligently and usually came up with the information he sought in a timely manner. If he didn't know them better, he would assume that they weren't doing their job.

"No," he said finally. "They're still searching, but so far they haven't come up with anything. I can tell you that she isn't from Collinsport. I can tell you that she isn't from any of the surrounding towns either. Beyond that….I don't know."

"It's so strange that you haven't been able to find anything. Surely someone must be out there looking for her. A family member or a friend."

"I don't know, Vicki. I just don't know."

"Well, maybe something will turn up. In the mean time I think Carolyn is really enjoying her company. The two of them have become surprisingly close."

"Why is that surprising to you?" Burke inquired. "I would assume that Josette's older than Carolyn, but not by many years, and you spend a great deal of time with David. I think it makes sense that the two of them have become fast friends."

"Well, when you put it that way, I suppose it doesn't seem all that surprising after all. I guess I thought it was surprising because they seem so different. Josette is quiet and more reserved, though I have seen the two of them laughing together many times over the past few days, so maybe she's only that way because of her accident. It's just that she isn't quite so forward or as…. I don't know…."

Victoria didn't finish her sentence, but Burke had an idea of what she was going to say. He had only interacted with Josette a few times, but the difference in her was clear enough that he'd noticed it even in those brief instances.

"Modern?" Burke supplied her with the correct term, or at least the one that had come to his mind. "That's what you were going to say, isn't it?"

"Well, yes, maybe that is the right word," Victoria replied. "It's just that at times she seems uncomfortable with certain things and reacts oddly to them. Things that you are I are used to and think nothing of, like the telephone."

"The telephone?" Burke said, utterly baffled.

"Well, she was with Carolyn in the drawing room a few days ago when Mrs. Stoddard received a call from Roger, and when the phone rang, it frightened her nearly to death!"

"Surely you're exaggerating, Vicki."

"I don't think I am. She was afraid, like she didn't know what the sound was and had never heard it before. And when Carolyn answered the phone, she just stared strangely at it the entire time that Carolyn talked to Roger until Mrs. Stoddard came in, almost as if she didn't recognize it. I know this will sound crazy, but for a moment, it was almost like she was from another time…a time when there were no telephones at all!"

Burke shook his head, knowing that _that_ statement was definitely and without doubt an exaggeration.

"Now we both know that's not possible. Maybe she was thinking about something and the sound of it ringing just startled her. Come on, you can't tell me that you've never jumped at the sound of a phone ringing, or a knock at the door."

"Well, of course I have, when I'm distracted by my thoughts or not expecting to hear anything," Victoria admitted. "But I doubt it startled her because she had something on her mind. She and Carolyn were just talking when it rang."

"All right then. Josette somehow traveled through time and found herself in another century." Burke grinned at her.

"Burke! Quit teasing me! Of course she isn't from another century…. I guess sometimes I just let my imagination get the better of me."

Burke squeezed her hand. "I can live with that trait. I think it can be very charming, as long as you imagine the future, Vicki. Our future. Imagine how wonderful it would be, because I promise you that if you marry me, I'll do everything I can to make it wonderful."

Victoria blushed again, and he became so wrapped up in the sight of it that he forgot about Josette. He turned his thoughts fully over to the future and the woman that he'd asked to be a part of it. He was a lucky man, that much he knew.

Few men in Collinsport had the possibility of a brighter future than the one that he could one day share with Victoria.

* * *

It was late when Dr. Dave Woodard arrived at Collinwood. 

"Dr. Woodard, hello," Elizabeth Collins-Stoddard greeted him with a gracious smile and motioned for him to enter the drawing room. "I must confess that I was a bit surprised when Mrs. Johnson informed me that you were here."

"I know it's getting rather late, but I stopped by to check on Josette," he explained with a tired grin. "I had planned to come by yesterday evening, and then I ended up having to stay at the hospital most of the night to deliver a set of twins. And if such a thing's possible, I've been twice as busy today."

"Nothing as serious as those dreadful attacks, I hope," she said. Her concern was visible on her face.

"No," he assured her. "Seems a rather bad cold is going around, that's all. In fact, there hasn't been a report of an attack in several days. I'm relieved by that, but more than a little puzzled at the same time."

"Yes, it does seem odd. They seemed to have stopped with Maggie Evans. That poor girl. Do you know if Sheriff Patterson is any closer to finding out who was responsible for kidnapping her?"

"The police have no leads to go on, I'm afraid," he answered, growing uncomfortable with the direction that the conversation was going in.

"I suppose it will be nearly impossible, now that she's dead. How horrible it must be for Joe Haskell, and especially for her father. I can't imagine what I would do if it were Carolyn in Maggie's place. I've told Carolyn, Victoria, and Josette not to wander alone at night."

"That would be best, at least for the time being."

He was inwardly very glad when she changed the subject.

"Well, it's good that you arrived when you did because Josette is going out with Carolyn tonight. They're meeting Burke Devlin and Victoria soon, though I'm sure there's enough time for her to speak with you. I'll get her. Please sit down, and I will have Mrs. Johnson bring you in some coffee."

"That would be wonderful," he said gratefully. "I could use it."

She nodded and left.

He tried to push away the thought of Maggie Evans, but it was hard to do. No matter how busy he was, or how many patients he treated and looked after, her ordeal was never far from his thoughts. In all of his years as a doctor, he had never before come across a case so perplexing. Her sudden, unexplainable blood loss, the two small wounds on her neck…. It would seem that they had to somehow be connected to her abduction. It boggled his mind, and forced him to consider other….possibilities….that he would otherwise denounce as completely and utterly ridiculous.

If there was a logical explanation for what had happened to Maggie Evans, Dave Woodard had not found it.

In fact, he was beginning to believe that it didn't exist for him to find.

_I'm a doctor. A man of medicine. Science. Everything has a logical explanation, and this… Is it possible that this doesn't? That Maggie's experience was based on something beyond the rational mind's comprehension…something…_

There was a word that his mind wanted to use, a word that would roll easily off of his tongue if he wasn't careful. It was a word that - as a doctor - he simply couldn't speak. It contradicted his beliefs, his studies, his very _life's_ work.

And yet it hovered in his head like a cloud did in the sky, waiting to release the rain. He knew that if he said the word, if he allowed it to pass his lips even if it only met an empty room, he would have to acknowledge that logic might not always hold the answer. He wasn't ready to do that.

He didn't know if he ever would be.

"Dr. Woodard?"

A soft voice drew him from his inner confusion and brought him back to the situation at hand. Josette stood in the doorway, staring at him. She stepped cautiously into the room when he smiled at her.

"Josette," he greeted her gently.

Dave wondered not for the first time if that was her true name. He hadn't lied to the Collins family when he'd said that Josette could be her name. It was entirely possible. It was also possible that her name was very different. As in the case of Maggie Evans, with Josette he had also encountered something he hadn't experienced before - complete memory loss. Though it was rare, he'd treated patients with partial memory loss before, most often due to a blow to the head. However, when he had examined Josette he'd found no evidence that she suffered from any such accident, which was puzzling to say the least.

She was a perfectly healthy young woman.

"Please, sit down," he requested. "I'm glad I happened to catch you before you left with Carolyn. I wanted to see how you were."

"I'm fine," she said.

Her response was automatic and stated quite flatly, but he only nodded his head.

"That's good. It's also good that you're going out. I see no harm in that. Have you remembered anything since I examined you?"

She gazed away from him and down at her hands. They were folded neatly in her lap in what looked to be an attempt to prepare herself. For a few moments, the only sound that could be heard was the faint rustle of the wind outside. He was certain that she would speak when she was ready, so he waited patiently.

Finally, she did.

"I have….flashes," she confessed. "They are distorted images, and they disappear so quickly when I receive them that I can never recall the details of them. The feelings that I've had are stronger, but I have nothing to place them with, so they are very confusing," she paused, then raised her eyes to meet his. He was surprised to see fear in them.

"They are very sudden, and they are never pleasant."

Her description of her feelings made him frown. He pushed the images she'd mentioned aside for the time being and focused on the feelings.

"Do they frighten you?"

"No…..yes," she said quietly. "Sometimes they leave me with a sense of dread. Sometimes they sadden me. I'm sorry that I'm unable to explain them to you. They vary so much and are so overwhelming."

"Is there something that triggers them? An action, a person, or maybe an object in your surroundings?"

He pressed her with equal concern and curiosity. When he had come to Collinwood to see her, he hadn't honestly expected her to be able to tell him very much when he asked her about her memory. What she'd revealed to him was a good sign.

"I'm not sure."

"Lets go back to the images. Can you tell me about them?"

"Well, I had one earlier this evening when Carolyn and I were upstairs. For a moment, I remembered a woman with light hair. I can no longer picture her face. It was very brief. I think she was also in my dream - no," she corrected herself, "I'm sure that she was the one in my dream. There were others, but I cannot remember them."

He could see a bit of excitement on her face and realized that she had pieced something together, but then she frowned, and he watched as her excitement faded.

"There was something about her that frightened me in my dream. That's why I felt troubled when I remembered her today. She frightened me, and yet she also angered me. I think she was laughing at me, and it was cruel and mocking. I did not want her there in my dream. I wanted her to go. I wanted her to leave me alone," her voice dropped to a whisper. "I wanted her to leave us alone."

He leaned forward, about to ask her what she'd meant by "us", and request that she tell him the specifics of her dream, but the sound of someone knocking on one of the drawing room doors interrupted him.

"Can I come in?"

Dave saw that it was Carolyn Stoddard and nodded.

"I'm sorry for interrupting the two of you, but I wanted to let Josette know that I talked to Burke and he said that Frank should be on his way to pick us up now. We're all going to spend the evening together," Carolyn explained to him, unaware that her mother had already informed him.

It took him a minute to remember Frank Hamilton. He had only met the man once, on the day that he'd been called to Collinwood to see Josette. Burke had introduced Frank as an old friend of his, and Dave recalled that Frank had seemed like a good natured person.

He turned his attention once more to Josette.

"I believe what you've told me tonight is a very good sign that you could remember everything over time." He smiled warmly at her. "In the mean time, try not to become too upset by your feelings, or anything that you might remember. Just let whatever comes to you come, don't fight it."

"Thank you for listening, and for trying to help. I apologize for not being able to give you more of my time tonight."

"It's all right. I was hardly expected, as Mrs. Stoddard pointed out when she saw me, and besides, I need to return to the hospital. There's a huge stack of paperwork on my desk with my name written on each sheet. I hope both you and Carolyn have a good time."

"Thanks, Dr. Woodard. I'm sure we will. Goodnight," Carolyn called after him. He gave both of the young women a smile, then walked out into the night.

On the drive back into town he continuously went over all that Josette had told him, replaying her words over and over in his head, but in the end he came up with nothing. Once he reached the hospital he was forced to set aside his ponderings, as one of his patient's had had a particularly damaging setback in their recovery. He spent several minutes trying to assure the man's wife that he was doing all that he could before he was able to head for his office to finish the stack of papers that were waiting for him.

He was striding to the door when a nurse stopped him.

"Sir? There's a man in your office. He arrived only around twenty minutes ago asking for you. I wouldn't have let him wait in there, but he insisted that you wouldn't mind because the two of you were old friends."

"Thanks for letting me know. And it's fine," he added, almost as an afterthought.

He could see her sag with relief at his words, and he gave a rueful sigh. Ever since Maggie Evans had mysteriously disappeared under her watch, she always seemed to be tense, ready to defend her actions before anyone had time to question them, regardless of whether or not they were actually going to.

He waited until she left, then opened the door to his office to be greeted by the sight of a very familiar man situated comfortably in one of his worn chairs.

Julian Hoffman.

* * *

Barnabas did not know where Willie had gone, nor did he truly care. He had wished to be alone. He'd thought that he would not be able to withstand the presence of another during the night ahead. The presence he had sensed in the house, _Josette's_ presence, continued to haunt his every step as he paced the length of the drawing room. If he closed his eyes he could vaguely see her form in his mind, ghostly and transparent. 

For the first time in a long while, he remembered young David's unyielding insistence that Josette haunted the rooms of the house. A wraith in the white wedding gown she had donned for the portrait he had lovingly mounted in her room.

He had dismissed David's words, perhaps out of fear more than disbelief. The possibility that the boy had somehow managed to connect to Josette was disconcerting and exceedingly painful.

If Josette could appear to David, if she had done so before, why had she not appeared to _him_? Why had her spirit suddenly vanished from the Old House when he had arrived?

_Are you that frightened of me, my love? So frightened that you cannot bear to appear to me the way you do to David? Why? I only wanted us to be together for eternity. _

_Why fear me, Josette? _

_I love you!_

"I love you," he whispered, but the empty room held no reply.

Suddenly, his desire to be alone fled him, and more than anything he wanted to have someone there. Someone who could understand him. Someone who was not afraid of him. Someone who did not merely regard him as the eccentric cousin from England. He wanted someone who could-

_Love._

-accept him as he was, for he knew there would never be an escape from Angelique's curse. He would never be the man that he had been long ago. The man no one feared. The man that his peers had liked and respected. The man that his mother had adored, Sarah had worshipped, and Josette had loved.

That man was buried under the creature that Angelique had created, and he would never be able to fully rise again.

Barnabas Collins was dead.

He smothered the angry snarl that threatened to tear from his throat, and he realized that he had to leave the Old House, at least until dawn. He had to evade his thoughts, his feelings, his memories….or they would destroy him as effectively as the sunlight searing his skin, or a stake penetrating his heart.

He gathered his cloak and cane, and sought safety in the darkness.

He wandered for a time, too lost within his tormented mind to realize that he had taken the path to Collinwood until he stood at its front doors.

He leaned his forehead against one door for a moment, unable to understand why he had come to the mansion. Then he stepped back and knocked resolutely. He could not clearly recall the last night that he had visited his cousin, Elizabeth, or anyone at Collinwood. Perhaps doing so would ease his distress, and distract him from the ghosts of his past...


	12. Alive

**Chapter 11: _Alive_**

From the moment Elizabeth had allowed him entry into Collinwood, Barnabas was aware of a presence that was at once both disconcerting and exhilarating.

His heightened senses were instantly alerted to a faint, familiar scent floating in the air as Elizabeth led him into the drawing room and closed the doors securely behind her. It was a scent that he could recall so vividly that he had spent the long, agonizing years in his coffin haunted by it, as well as other traits that belonged only to one person. One woman.

_Josette._

Her presence had penetrated the interior of Collinwood the way it had the Old House after he had freed himself from the infernal nightmare that he had found himself in when he'd awakened at dusk.

It was somehow stronger in Collinwood than it was at the Old House. Much, much stronger.

He had certainly never disregarded his elegant cousin in such a way before, but now Barnabas barely heard Elizabeth's voice as she spoke to him. He scrutinized the room that he was in as one would if they had never been inside of it before, searching for another sign.

For surely the alluring fragrance of jasmine had been meant as a sign to him. A sign that Josette was not truly gone, even if the site of her resting place was.

"Barnabas?" He vaguely heard Elizabeth say his name with gentle concern. "Barnabas, is everything all right?"

He had to force himself to focus his attention onto his cousin. The urge to explore the mansion in the hope that Josette's presence lingered elsewhere within its walls was overpowering.

"Forgive me, Elizabeth," he apologized sincerely to her. "I have not been well, and I'm afraid I am not quite myself."

"We were wondering why you haven't visited us and were beginning to worry. We're all very fond of you, Barnabas. We would like to see more of you."

"I feel the same, and I will try to visit more often," Barnabas promised her.

"I'm glad," Elizabeth said with a smile. "We have a new guest for you to meet as well and that was what I was speaking of before. A young woman is staying with us. Mr. Devlin and a friend of his found her on the beach below Widows' Hill. The poor girl has no memory. She was very confused when they brought her here and I couldn't bear the thought of having her placed in a hospital."

Barnabas's eyes widened as each piece of information that Elizabeth provided fell heavily into his mind like shards of stone.

_A young woman found below Widows' Hill…. Widows' Hill….Can it be?_

"Elizabeth, please pardon my interruption, but if she has no memory, then what have you been calling her? Has she a name?"

His desperate need to know of the young woman she had invited to stay at Collinwood made it almost impossible to disguise his impatience.

"She did give Burke and his friend a first name when they found her. Given your interest in the past and in the history of the family's ancestors, I think you'll find the name rather odd and perhaps a bit intriguing."

Barnabas tensed and gripped the silver of his cane tightly in his hand in agonizing anticipation.

"She seems to believe her name to be Josette."

_**Josette!**_

Barnabas spun away from Elizabeth and turned to the fireplace in an attempt to conceal the shock that threatened to bring him to his knees. He did not dare face Elizabeth, or seat himself in one of the chairs as he suddenly longed to do. She would have been able to tell in an instant how very much he was affected by her news.

"Josette," he said softly, once he trusted himself to be able to speak the name of his beloved and not falter. The flames from the fire in the hearth blurred and danced in front of his eyes as he murmured, more to himself than to Elizabeth, "Why?"

If Elizabeth had noticed his poorly contained emotional outburst, she made no mention of it.

"She isn't sure herself, unfortunately. She told Carolyn that the name had felt right to her, like it was her own name, but she remembers nothing. Burke offered to try and find out if anyone with the name of Josette has been reported missing, or worse. It isn't a name that one hears very often. If there is something to be found I'm confident he'll find it, and then perhaps we can truly help her. I'm sure she has family searching for her, people who love her…"

_Someone is searching for her. Desperately searching….. _

_And he loves her more than life itself…… _

"Perhaps," Barnabas murmured, not trusting himself to say anything more.

_Could it be? Could this woman with no memory or past be my Josette? Could she have been brought back? Returned from the fate that had stolen her from me all of those many long years ago? Her grave is gone, and I sense her here in this room. Josette…could she truly have been returned to me?  
_

_How wonderful it would be, how wonderful and how cruel. To have her once more, but with no memory of me, no memory of our love._

Barnabas closed his eyes for a brief moment, ever aware that Elizabeth was still present in the drawing room and was no doubt watching him. He did not wish to arouse her concern or curiosity.

"May I meet her?"

His request was nothing more than a polite formality. He _would_ meet her, and he would do so on this very night. He would not leave Collinwood until he did.

"She's out with Carolyn and Victoria. Burke and his friend, his name is Frank Hamilton, are there as well. They should be returning very soon. You're more than welcome to remain here and wait for them if you wish. I know that Carolyn and Victoria would like to see you. But please stay only if you feel up to it."

"I shall be fine, and I would like to stay," Barnabas said, thinking only of the young woman and her imminent return.

He would wait until the sun rose from the horizon to be able to gaze into the face of his beautiful Josette.

_I must see her tonight… I must._

"Would you care for anything to drink while you wait? I can have Mrs. Johnson get you something."

"That will not be necessary, Elizabeth. Thank you."

Elizabeth excused herself to finish paperwork on the family's business and left him alone with only his thoughts and dreams of an eternity spent with Josette beside him.

He walked over to the window and stared out at the night sky, wishing that he had the power to call her to him.

_Return to me, Josette. Return to me so that we can be together, as we should have been on that fateful night so long ago……

* * *

_

"_I don't think you'll like it there."_

David's words echoed in her head as Josette sat in one of the many small chairs that surrounded the scratched wooden tables that populated the Blue Whale, the place that Carolyn had deemed Collinsport's "hot spot".

She did not necessarily dislike it. It simply contained an atmosphere that left her feeling awkward, though she could not find a particular reason for it. However, she still found herself glancing about with interest. She became utterly entranced, as well as slightly embarrassed, when Burke and Victoria had left the table to dance to a slow, strange type of music that came from what Carolyn had called the "jukebox".

Upon their arrival at the Blue Whale, Josette had stared at the tall, brightly colored object for a time until she realized that her companions had noticed that she was not exactly involved in their conversation.

Like the telephone before it, Josette assumed that the jukebox was something ordinary that most people were familiar with. There were only so many times that she could assure herself that her memory kept her from recognizing such things before her lack of such apparently basic knowledge became more than a little unsettling.

However, her thoughts were temporarily set aside as she watched Burke and Victoria dance. They were pressed close together, so close that Victoria had her head on Burke's shoulder, and their arms were wrapped intimately around each others' bodies as they swayed back and forth to the music.

Frank had asked her to dance and she had politely declined. As Carolyn had explained to her previously, Burke and Victoria were dating. She and Frank shared no such relationship, and she would not feel right in engaging in such an intimate act with him.

Still, she wondered how it would feel to be held the way that Burke was holding Victoria. To move as one with someone as they danced together.

_Have I ever danced in someone's arms?_

She let a sigh escape her lips as she glanced down at her glass of water. She'd had nothing to eat, though everyone else had eaten when they arrived. She had taken one look at the food that Frank had ordered - burgers, they were called - and immediately lost most of her appetite. Though Frank had told her that they were delicious, she could not bring herself to try one and had instead announced that she was not hungry.

The Blue Whale was crowded, and Carolyn seemed to know more of the men than the women, which made Josette blush. Carolyn was boldly social and it never ceased to amaze her.

Carolyn was currently talking to a tall, brown haired young man that was sitting by himself at another table. She and Frank were alone.

"Are you enjoying yourself?" Frank asked. She could see genuine concern on his face. "Don't take this the wrong way, the last thing I want to do is offend or upset you, but you seem kind of lost."

"I'm not offended. I must be honest, I am a bit lost. Perhaps it's only because of my memory….regardless, you must excuse me if I seem as though I'm not enjoying myself," Josette said self-consciously. "I am pleased that I came here tonight."

"I'm delighted that you came."

Frank smiled at her. It was a handsome smile, but it made her feel uncomfortable.

She was suddenly aware of Frank in a way that she had not been before.

She shyly returned his smile, and then quickly averted her gaze to where Burke and Victoria were dancing, but the sight made her even more aware of Frank and how closely he was sitting beside her.

She rose from her chair, and when Frank looked up at her questioningly, she only smiled at him again. It was her turn to hope that _he_ would not be offended.

"I would like some air, I have a bit of a headache. Please excuse me for a moment."

She stepped out into the night and breathed in the cool air. The Blue Whale was on the harbor, and the soft sound of the water soothed her with its peaceful song.

"Josette!"

Startled by the sound of her name - and she was certain that it was her name, no matter how foolish that certainty was considering that she could remember nothing at all - she turned back to the Blue Whale and saw Willie Loomis standing in front of the door as if he had been about to go in and had changed his mind when he noticed her.

"Hello, Mr.-" Josette paused to correct herself when she recalled that he had given her permission to address him by his first name, "Willie."

He came over to her and stared at her in a nervous fashion, and it occurred to her that he did not seem very happy to see her.

"I thought ya might've left by now. What are ya doin' out here? It ain't a good idea to stand alone out here in the dark."

Willie spoke in a worried tone, which made her realize that perhaps the reason for his behavior was simply that she was alone outside. She remembered how fervently he had told her to leave Collinsport because of the attacks.

He was probably only afraid for her.

"I'm here with Carolyn and Victoria, they are inside. I've not been out here very long. I just needed some fresh air," she explained to him.

"Oh. I guess you're plannin on stayin', huh?"

He sounded sad, even resigned.

"For now, yes. I know of nowhere else I can go. Please do not worry for me, Willie. I promise I will be careful."

"I just don't want anythin' happenin' to ya, that's all."

"Nothing will, at least not with you to look out for me. I appreciate you doing that, Willie," she said gently. "Shall we go inside? I suspect someone will be searching for me if I do not go back in."

"Okay."

He followed her into the Blue Whale. Once inside, however, he went to a separate table. She was about to ask him if he would like to join her, but then remembered what Carolyn had told her about the Collins family not trusting him, as well as Burke's dislike of him, and changed her mind.

She was not without regret over that decision. She did not know Willie Loomis very well at all, but she somehow knew instinctively that he would never harm her.

"There you are!" Carolyn exclaimed with a grin as she returned to their table. "I thought I was going to have to go outside and get you. Burke and Victoria are planning to leave soon, and Burke volunteered to drive us back to Collinwood since he has to drive Vicki back. Is that all right?"

"Yes, of course it is."

She was inwardly relieved that they would be returning to Collinwood. The night had inexplicably exhausted her.

Frank stood. "I had a great time. We'll all have to do this again, even if I have to pay next time." He winked at Burke, and then focused his attention completely on her. "I hope you'll go out with us again, Josette. I enjoyed spending time with you."

"Thank you," she said softly.

As she made her way to the door with the others, she gazed at Willie intending to smile at him, but he would not have seen her smile. He was staring strangely at Frank.

Josette found that very odd. As far as she knew, the two men did not know each other.

* * *

"Cousin Barnabas!" 

Barnabas turned from the window, caught off guard by the small voice that had come from behind him. David was standing in the doorway of the drawing room staring at him in surprise.

"Hello, David." He inclined his head in greeting to the boy.

He had not seen as much of David as of late. Thankfully, the child seemed to have finally made good on his promise to Roger that he would not sneak into the Old House during the day as he had been prone to do.

Barnabas had no qualms with his young "cousin", but could not have allowed him to continue entering the Old House without permission. David would have eventually seen something that Barnabas did not want him, or anyone, to see.

The coffin in the basement.

And for a time, the missing Maggie Evans dressed as Josette.

"Should you not be in bed?" he inquired. He suspected that Elizabeth did not realize that David was not asleep. When he saw the brief flash of guilt cross David's face he knew that his suspicion had been right.

"Well…I was thirsty, and I heard voices when I came downstairs, " David explained, then gazed up at him with a curiously knowing expression. "You're waiting for Josette, aren't you?"

Barnabas raised an eyebrow at David's perceptiveness, but he was not entirely surprised by it. From the very first night that he had met David at the Old House, David's interest in the house and the portrait of Josette had been clear. Still, it left him deeply disturbed. David's harmless enthusiasm for the ghosts of the past could prove dangerous.

For him.

And most especially for the boy.….

"Oh? What makes you so sure of that, David?"

David shrugged. "I'm sure Aunt Elizabeth told you about her, and I just figured you would want to meet her, that's all."

Barnabas sensed that what David had told him was not _all_, but he decided to let it go for the time being. He was far too distracted by the tantalizing prospect of being reunited with Josette to immediately consider the possible implications of David's accurate assumption.

"Well, since she is going to be staying here with the family I think it is only right that I meet her," he said smoothly.

"You want to meet her because of her name, because she has the same name as our ancestor."

David's tone was almost accusing, and Barnabas found himself narrowing his eyes as he lost a fraction of his self-restraint. The grip he held on his cane tightened almost as much it had when Elizabeth had been preparing to tell him about Josette.

Fortunately, David did not seem to notice the sudden difference in his demeanor. He forced himself to calm, and managed to feign bewilderment at David's comment.

"Now David, why would that be my reason for meeting her?"

"I don't know." David shook his head. "I just think that it is."

"I can assure you that it is not," Barnabas stated firmly, deciding to gain control of the conversation. "Have you spoken with her?"

"Yes, lots of times," David answered easily. "She's very nice."

"What do the two of you talk about?"

"Oh, different things. Mostly she asks me questions, questions that I think she doesn't want to ask Carolyn or anybody else. I don't mind. I'm glad that she talks to me because I like talking to her. When I'm talking to her I almost feel like I'm-"

"David! You're supposed to be in bed!"

Barnabas glanced up from David to see Elizabeth striding into the drawing room.

"I just came down because I was thirsty, Aunt Elizabeth, honest," David protested, pouting. "I heard voices and I wanted to know who was here."

"Well, now you know, and it's time for you to return to bed," Elizabeth said sternly as she took him by the shoulders and turned him in the direction of the foyer stairs.

"Oh, okay," David muttered.

Barnabas watched him go, slightly annoyed that they had been interrupted, even if the person who had interrupted them was the member of the family that he held in the highest regard. He was certain that David could have unknowingly given him valuable information about the young woman who called herself Josette.

_My Josette…She must be my Josette._

"If you will excuse me, Barnabas, I'd better go upstairs and make sure David gets to bed all right," Elizabeth said with a smile.

He did not have the time to reflect on his talk with David, for as soon as Elizabeth had gone upstairs, the sound of a door opening in the foyer reached his ears and was followed by very familiar voices.

"Well, I've had quite a day, I'm going to go on up to bed."

"Of course you've had quite a day, Vicki. All that dancing must have tired you out!"

"I suppose so! Goodnight, Carolyn, Josette."

_Josette……_

She was there, merely a room away from him. The ravages of time and the finality of death no longer separated them. All he had to do was walk into the foyer. He would see her and she would see him.

For he knew that she was Josette, _his_ Josette, just as clearly as he knew that each night would eventually collapse under the ever approaching day.

Standing still and silent in the Collinwood drawing room, Barnabas was momentarily taken back to almost two centuries ago, before the contemptible curse had been placed upon him, when he was just a naïve man, alive and anticipating the arrival of the exquisite young woman who was to be his wife.

_I will not allow anything to come between us again, Josette. Once we are reunited, no being on this earth or beyond it will take you from me._

He stepped forward, knowing that no amount of blood could quell the hunger that had risen inside of him. The hunger for _her_. The hunger that would never be satisfied until he had her with him again.

Forever.

He was reaching for the drawing room doors when they were opened for him, and he was met with a sight far more beautiful than a portrait, or a woman dressed in deception.

Josette's dark, echanting eyes met his, and for the first time in nearly two centuries, Barnabas Collins remembered what it was to be alive.


	13. The Sun and the Moon

A/N: The last chapter before the move. I promised myself that I would get it out before I left. :) I hope everyone likes it. I'll be updating again as soon as I get moved into my new place, which shouldn't take all that long. Hopefully if everything goes smoothly, it will only be a few weeks. Coming up is a little plotline from the show that I'm working into my story - the costume party. And following that Josette begins to remember and things will get a little tense for more than a few people. :) Thanks so much for sticking with the story!

* * *

**Chapter 12: _The Sun and the Moon_**

Josette had been ready to retire to her room at Collinwood, sink into the soft bed covers, and fall into what she hoped would be a dreamless sleep. She had felt tired all evening, perhaps as a result of her excursion in the woods and encounter at the Old House.

She had been afraid there, but the fear was fleeting and had disappeared within moments after Willie had led her out of the house. In fact, she realized later at Collinwood as she dressed for the night out that she had wanted to go back. Her longing to return to the Old House had been so strong that had Willie not been with her, she knew she would have retracted her steps and found herself once again on the portico.

A voice had seemed to whisper her name over the wind, plead with her to follow it to somewhere dark and inviting.

She had told herself that she was being overly inventive as a result of her longing to find even the smallest of a connection, and that it was also her dream - the one she had described only vaguely to Dr. Woodard - that made her feel so drawn to the house.

But then there was Barnabas Collins and her desire to meet him to consider.

It was because of this that she became wide awake when she opened the drawing room doors and gazed into the eyes of the man in the portrait behind her. The man in the portrait at the Old House.

Barnabas Collins.

And she was quite sure, from something hidden deeply inside of her, somewhere she could not reach, that she would never sleep soundly again.

He did not speak. Josette was grateful because she was not certain that she could have handled the sound of his voice, and she was so enraptured by his appearance that she doubted very much that she could form words at all, let alone force them past her lips.

She was staring, she knew, but she could not stop staring long enough to turn her head in shame. She could not take her eyes from his.

And he had not removed his eyes from her.

Was it a comfort that he seemed to be as intensely affected by her as she was by him?

She did not know. She simply could not think. She could only see, and what she saw was Barnabas Collins standing before her, as silent and as unmoving as she was.

She felt exposed under his stare. It was a stare so startlingly sensual that it seemed as though he were staring not at her face, or hair, or even her rather revealing - in her own opinion, at least - red dress, but directly into her soul.

_What do you see? Can you tell me who I am?_

She heard Carolyn introduce them, heard the intrigue in Carolyn's voice - a result of their reactions to one another, she supposed distantly.

Then he spoke. He said her name.

"Josette."

From his lips it was a title and a caress, and never before had it belonged so rightly to her. It was _her _name.

She selfishly wanted to hear him say it again.

He seemed to sense that she was not ready to speak. He continued, his voice so deep and eloquent that it reminded her of a melody. A soft, tinkling melody that began to echo in her mind.

"Cousin Elizabeth told me tonight that you were staying here at Collinwood, but she failed to mention how lovely you are."

He studied her almost searchingly for a moment, as if he sought something from her, then took her hand in his and kissed it gently. His lips were soft against her skin. Soft and-

_Cold._

She withdrew her hand from his so quickly that her own action caught her off guard. She glanced down at the floor and struggled to collect herself before she dared to look at him again. She fiercely hoped that he had not noticed her abrupt reaction to his touch.

"You are very flattering, Mr. Collins," she murmured, abashed by her behavior.

Despite her embarrassment, she realized how close she had been to addressing him by his given name. How tempting it had been to say his name the way he had said hers.

_Barnabas._

'Mr. Collins' felt far too formal, which was a very uncommon feeling for her to have. Carolyn often teased her about having a penchant for propriety, and she could hardly refute that remark. Even after they had reiterated their desire for her to do so more than once, it had taken her a few tries before she was successful in addressing some of the members of the Collins family by their first names. With Barnabas Collins it would have been so very easy to do.

"Please, you must call me Barnabas."

His insistence relieved her.

"Barnabas," she repeated. Her voice sounded faint, like it was coming from a great expanse where it was submerged beneath the melody in her mind.

Hearing her say his name seemed to please him immensely because a warm glow entered his eyes, giving them a radiance that reached into her being and relaxed her. The nervous tension that had gripped her loosened its hold and drifted away. She felt herself smile at him.

Did she imagine that his eyes grew more luminescent as she did?

"I realize it is late, but if you would not mind, I would be delighted if you joined me in the drawing room. I have always found the night much too alluring to waste on sleep, though it is often lonely. Will you join me?"

It was such a simple, innocent request, and yet she could not help but feel that it was an allusion to something far greater. That it was a request, _an invitation_, for more.

Much more.

"I would not mind," she answered.

Any apprehension she felt from her decision disappeared when he smiled at her. He held out his hand and without hesitation she placed her own inside of it. His fingers gently became intertwined with her own and she looked down at their hands as he led her into the drawing room. They fit together perfectly.

She no longer noticed the chill of his skin.

He waited until she was seated on the settee and then placed himself beside her. He let go of her hand slowly and folded his on the silver topped cane he carried with him. The cane was the same as the one in the portraits and the black stone ring that adorned one hand was the same as well. The ring gleamed in the dim light of the room, the flames of the fire flickering in the hearth danced within the stone.

It was then that she realized Carolyn had left them alone together. When had Carolyn excused herself?

_How could I not have noticed her leave?_

Josette did not have time to wonder about Carolyn. Barnabas's voice invaded her mind, and the peculiar, delicate melody continued to make its presence known there.

"Please forgive me if I sound too prying, but Elizabeth has told me of your memory. I cannot imagine how dreadful that must be for you."

"Everything is very disconcerting for me, and sometimes I feel so set apart from the others here, " Josette professed. "Each morning when I wake I stand in front of the mirror and ask myself who I am, and each night I wish that one day I will wake and know the answer."

She flushed at how openly she had shared those feelings with him. She had not even confessed them to Carolyn.

"Surely your memory will return to you? You did remember your name, after all."

There was a sadness in his voice that had not been present before, companion to an urgency that startled her.

"I cannot be certain that Josette is my name. It was only a feeling." She paused briefly, then added, "A very strong feeling."

Barnabas removed one hand from his cane and placed it over her own. He gazed intently at her, capturing her with his eyes. The depth of emotion in them sent a strange sensation spiraling through her heart.

"A feeling is often all that is needed. You feel that Josette is your name because it is. I'm sure your memory will return in time."

He spoke quietly, but with a conviction that both pleased her and unsettled her all at once. It pleased her because she _wanted_ Josette to be her name, and it unsettled her because he seemed so passionately certain when there was no reason in the world for him to be.

He had only just met her!

_And yet……_

"I pray that you are right," she said, realizing then just how close the two of them were to one another, how very close his face was to hers.

For a moment, she abandoned her senses and imagined herself in his arms, his lips lowering to meet her own….

She turned her face away and looked to the window, though she saw nothing of the night sky. Her cheeks grew heated.

Carefully, she removed her hand from under his and rose from the settee. She made her way blindly to the window, struggling to calm her pounding heart. The feelings that he inspired within her were frightening. And exciting.

As she felt him approach her though, his presence offered her comfort. He stopped just behind her, and she knew that if she leaned back her head would come to rest on his shoulder.

Confused by the war of emotions that battled inside of her, she closed her eyes.

"The night is beautiful, isn't it? If only it could last forever," he whispered.

There was a trace of wistfulness in his tone. She knew it well, for it was in her own voice every time she spoke of her missing past.

"The sun is harsh when compared to the moon," he continued. "The moon is pale and gentle. The sun is bright and one can hardly look at it without going blind."

At his comment, she opened her eyes and looked out into the night. Against the darkened sky the moon showered its ghostly rays upon the vast lawn of the Collins estate. It was peaceful and serene with its subtle glow.

_Why do I feel that it is all an illusion?_

"Perhaps when compared to the moon the sun is harsh, but it is also warm and illuminating," she said, unable to keep from being drawn in by his melancholy words.

She turned her head so that she could see him. His dark eyes reminded her of the night, his features of the evening's shadows, and yet she could envision him standing in the sunlight, his black hair shining under its brilliance.

"I think the moon needs the sun."

"Perhaps," he conceded with a sigh. It was a mournful sound.

He moved away from her and looked to the floor. Silence fell over them, and she sensed that she had somehow created a distance between them, one that she wished desperately to make disappear. She reached for him and placed her hand on his arm. He tensed beneath her fingertips, but there was a softness in his gaze as he slowly faced her.

"Barnabas, I….. Barnabas…."

Her voice dropped to a whisper, and she found that she could not finish her sentence because she did not know what she had intended to say.

_How can I be so drawn to him? _

"Josette…."

The reverence with which he murmured her name undid her. She looked deeply into his eyes until she became immersed in their depths, and buried within them she found a gateway to another time. A time long gone….

_A time he wants to return to……_

_I belong there. I belong to another time._

Her thoughts were distorted, wavering at the edge of an endless, empty abyss. If they disappeared, fell into the abyss and drowned in its darkness, they would be lost to her. She tried to pull them to safety, pull them away from the ledge they lingered on, but they escaped from her and began to fall.

Her mind mourned its loss.

"I should go," Barnabas announced suddenly, his voice low and regretful. "You must be tired, and I have kept you up for some time. Forgive me for enjoying your company for so long on this night."

She walked with him to the door, dazed by all that had transpired in such a short time. No more than an hour ago she had not known Barnabas Collins, but it now felt as though she had known him for many years, that their meeting was not so much an introduction but a reunion between two souls that somehow seemed connected.

"Goodnight, Josette. I'm sure we will meet again soon."

"Goodnight," she responded softly.

They stared at each other a moment more in silence, and she suppressed an irrational desire to ask him to stay. It both thrilled her and terrified her to think that he would have, had she expressed that desire to him.

She remained in the foyer for some time after he had left. She stepped tenuously over to the portrait of the man that looked so much like the one she had just been introduced to and raised her hand. She traced the outline of his features with her fingers, unable to comprehend why she was doing so.

Or why she was trembling.

And the light, tinkling melody continued to haunt the hollow halls inside of her head.

* * *

By the time Barnabas returned to the Old House he was trembling. He had not dreamed since the curse had been placed upon him or he would have believed that he had been dreaming on this night. 

Even the most wonderful dream, however, could not compare to the reality of looking upon Josette, _his_ Josette, and seeing her as she had been over a century ago, before the agonizing night when she had taken her life and forsaken him. Her hands were warm and her porcelain skin was without the pallor of death. Her lovely face was flawless, no longer did the scars from her fall mar her beauty.

He could never forget the night that he had willed her back to him in desperation, demanded for her to abandon her grave so that they could be reunited. The horrible disfigurements that had ravaged her face, the bitter sadness in her voice as she begged him to let her rest….

He'd had to let her go that night, as tormenting as it was for his grieving heart and suffering soul.

He had once thought that he would never have her again unless he recreated her in the form of another, but no longer would he have to search for someone deserving of her name. No longer would he have to dwell on Maggie Evans and her inability to submit to him. Josette had somehow returned to him and he would have no one else. Fate had given him a gift. He did not know how or why, nor did he truly care. All that mattered was that Josette was alive and they could have another chance. One last chance to spend eternity side by side.

_It will be different this time. She will come to me willingly. She will not flee from me. _

_But what of her memory? If she remembers our love, then she will remember the curse……she will remember what I am!_

_I will help her understand my existence, make her see that it is the only existence that the two of us can share. I must._

He settled into his wingback chair, the image of Josette as she had looked in the drawing room earlier unfolded in his mind.

He had been so entranced by the sight of her standing there in front of his disbelieving eyes that at first he had not even been aware of the dress she had been wearing until she had joined him in the drawing room.

Then he had been completely astounded.

Perhaps one of the most difficult adjustments he'd had to accept after Willie had freed him from his coffin had been the style of clothing, none so much as the short skirts and revealing dresses that women favored in this century. He had been utterly appalled at how exposed many of them appeared. He still had not quite gotten accustomed to such casual attire, and seeing Josette in a dress not unlike some of the ones that he had seen Carolyn or Victoria wear had made his discomfort reemerge. He had to suppress the impulse to cover her with his caped coat, or find Mrs. Johnson and send the woman to retrieve a proper dress or cloak for her.

However, as he had reveled in her presence, he could not deny that he had longed to carress the soft surface of her bare arms, nor could he deny his fascination with the sight of her smooth, pale legs, as brazen as those desires were.

He had hoped that he would catch a glimmer of recognition in her eyes, a hint that she had not entirely forgotten him, but his hope was dashed when he discovered that she was not even convinced of her own name.

Still, he had studied her reactions to him carefully and there was something there, something hidden in her expressions that could one day lead to recognition, of that he was certain. Her memory would not remain lost to her.

It was with weary anticipation that he waited for the night when he would be able to gaze into her eyes and find those memories within them.

_My darling Josette……would you still rather die than become my bride?_

He focused his stare on the flames in the fireplace and was reminded of something she had said to him. Something that had made him burn from anger and sigh from sorrow.

"I need you, Josette," he whispered.

Her words hovered in his mind, haunting him.

"_**I think the moon needs the sun."**_


	14. Warning Signs

A/N: I'm so incredibly sorry for the long absence! Moving took longer than I thought it would and I'm afraid I got sidetracked by being here. I was constantly on the go for a while. I didn't really like where I was living, so I'm much happier now. It won't take that long for me to update again. This chapter put me back into the story, and there's some foreshadowing in it of things to come. Hope I still have some readers left:)

Coming up in the next few chapters: Josette dresses as herself for Barnabas's costume party, but an uninvited guest turns the evening into a fearful one. Suspicions are aroused, Josette's memory begins to return, and she places Barnabas's existence in danger. Darkness looms ahead for those at Collinwood.

* * *

**Chapter 13: _Warning Signs_**

"Hello, David!"

David glanced up from the leaves that were scattered along the ground, startled by the sound of Sarah's voice. She stood just in front of him, in the same white dress and bonnet that she had been wearing the first time he saw her, smiling brightly at him.

He hadn't even heard her approach, though that was nothing new. He never did.

"Sarah! I was beginning to think you weren't out here today. I've been looking for you for almost an hour," he said accusingly.

"I'm sorry, David. But I'm here now. What do you want to play?"

"I can't play, Sarah." He scowled at her, frustrated that she had shown up right when he had to return to Collinwood. "I promised Vicki I wouldn't be out here for longer than an hour. I've already broken one promise to her, I can't break another one. You understand that, don't you, Sarah?"

He watched her face fall and felt badly. It wasn't like he _wanted_ to go back inside. He knew Vicki would most likely tell him to study and he didn't feel at all like studying. He just didn't have a choice.

"Oh. I understand, David. It's just….I get lonely."

David frowned at the sadness in her voice.

"You really should come back to Collinwood with me, Sarah. Aunt Elizabeth and Vicki would like to meet you. You would like them."

"I can't do that, David."

"I knew you would say no," David muttered glumly. "I also think you should meet Josette. She's staying with us right now. She's very nice, and she's lonely too. She has no memory of her past."

"I knew someone named Josette," Sarah said, and David stared at her in surprise.

"You did?"

"Yes. I knew her a long time ago."

"Was the Josette you knew from around here, Sarah?" David asked, genuinely interested in what Sarah had to say.

Sarah said so many strange things, things that didn't make sense. But he was always interested in what she had to say. She was such a funny kid, and sometimes he didn't understand her at all.

"No. She was from somewhere far away."

Sarah's answer was vague and only inspired more questions in David's head, but he didn't have time to ask them. He had to get back to Collinwood before Vicki went out looking for him. He turned to look at the mansion and imagined Vicki standing in the foyer, staring at the clock expectantly. He sighed.

"I have to go, Sarah."

"Alright. Goodbye, David."

"Before I go, I have one more quest- Sarah?"

David turned back to face her and found himself staring at the empty space where she had been. She was already gone.

He shrugged, then made his way back to Collinwood.

* * *

The sun was shining brightly through the window panes of Collinwood as Carolyn made her way down the stairs intending to go into the kitchen and see what Mrs. Johnson had made for breakfast that morning. If her uncle had been home he would've likely insisted that she rethink that decision. Roger had remarked on more than one occasion that Mrs. Johnson's cooking sometimes left a lot to be desired. The remembrance of his comment brought a smile to her face. She missed him whenever he went away on one of his business trips. Collinwood was never quite the same without him. 

Through bleary eyes she glimpsed her mother sitting at the desk in the drawing room as she passed by the opened doors and paused. She debated for a moment on whether or not to interrupt her mother, who looked be writing on one piece of the handful of papers that were neatly stacked on the desk's surface, but her mother sensed that she was standing there and looked up from her work. She greeted her with a warm smile.

"Good morning, Carolyn. I was beginning to think you might sleep until the afternoon."

"I didn't sleep well last night," Carolyn said tiredly, struggling to wake herself fully and rubbing at her eyes. "I guess I was just a bit wound after our little outing at the Blue Whale. It was very late by the time I managed to fall asleep."

"I hope everything went well. Did you have a good time?"

"I think we all enjoyed ourselves, Vicki especially. She and Burke have grown very close." Carolyn grinned when she remembered the happy expression Burke had on his face all evening. "And I have a feeling I know why Burke felt like celebrating, but I'll behave until Vicki confirms it."

"Yes, they have grown close," her mother agreed with a knowing smile. "I'm glad for Vicki, she could use some happiness in her life. She's been awfully isolated here at Collinwood since she accepted the position as David's governess."

"We all could use some happiness," Carolyn replied, unable to keep from thinking that nearly everyone at Collinwood was isolated from the outside world in some form or another.

Her mother had not left the house for nearly two decades due to the deceitful, ugly lies of Jason McGuire and only recently stepped foot outside of the mansion's familiar halls. Roger was surrounded by business associates and cannery workers and little else. David had no friends of his own and resorted to spending time exploring Collinwood and the Old House in search of ghosts. She herself seemed to be set apart from others her age simply because her last name was Collins. True friends were hard to come by. Romance seemed impossible.

Last, but certainly not least, there was her mysterious English cousin. For all of his friendly old world charm, Barnabas was often reserved to the point of being withdrawn. He sought solitude at the Old House instead of the regular company of his family at Collinwood. Though she certainly took no offense to that and respected his privacy, she often wondered why he was so distant.

_It's like he doesn't really want the family to get to know him. But why would that be? Surely he doesn't have anything to hide…_

It was this observation about Barnabas that had resulted in her absolute astonishment when she'd witnessed his interaction with Josette.

Their meeting was as an astounding event all by itself. She still hadn't found the right word for what had occurred between the two of them once they had laid eyes on each other. It was certainly one of the most bizarre things she had experienced. A connection seemed to form between her cousin and her new friend almost instantly, its invisible presence was so strange, not to mention so _strong_, she'd imagined that it could have easily filled every room in Collinwood!

A part of her had been amused, she had never seen her cousin appear so flustered before. For a moment she would have sworn that he had been positively dumbstruck by Josette. Josette had also reacted to Barnabas much differently than she had to anyone else. Was it fear or fascination that had filled her face as she stared at him? Carolyn had not been entirely sure that she was doing the right thing when she left the two of them alone together. In the end though, she had decided there was no reason to worry and excused herself to see if her mother was still awake.

They had both been so transfixed on each other that she doubted they were even aware when she left the foyer. Neither Barnabas nor Josette had acknowledged her in even the slightest of way. She had found that incredibly unusual, because their innate courtesy was a trait they had in common.

_Other than their names. Names that both belonged to ancestors of the family. Barnabas is a descendent of the original family, but of course Josette isn't. Still, what a strange coincidence it is that they both happen to share the same names as two people that lived here in the past._

_And that she looks just as much like Josette Collins as Barnabas does the original Barnabas Collins…_

Was Josette's name and extraordinary resemblance to Josette Collins the reason that Barnabas had been so intensely drawn to her? Was that the reason he had not been able to take his eyes off of her?

There was no denying her cousin's love for the past and his interest in his ancestors, especially Josette Collins. The room in the Old House that had once belonged to her was filled with the most intricate details of the woman's life in the late seventeen hundreds. Her things still decorated the room, and everything from the curtains to the tiny bottle of jasmine dated back to the time when Josette Collins had slept in the four poster bed and brushed her hair in front of the small mirror on the vanity. Barnabas's terrifying account of Josette's death on Widows' Hill was so dramatic and descriptive that it had caught Carolyn completely off guard when he told it to her, and it was further evidence of Barnabas's passion for the family legends.

She remembered how hard it had been for her to fall asleep that night. For once, the storm had not been at fault.

It was distressing to think that his interest in Josette was based only on those things, but Carolyn knew that she could be overreacting. If Barnabas and Josette grew close to each other, what was the real harm in it, other than the obvious issue of Josette's memory? And though she had never said as much to anyone else, she sometimes held the opinion that Barnabas needed another preoccupation besides family history books and people of the past.

_But is Josette a different preoccupation, or just an extension of one he already has?_

"Was Barnabas able to meet Josette last night?" her mother inquired, and Carolyn could hear the curiosity in her voice.

"I introduced them to each other," Carolyn told her, taking a seat in one of the chairs next to the desk. "They were still talking when I went upstairs to bed. They seemed to get along well."

_**Very** well._

She had decided to check on them some time after she had left them alone and found them in the drawing room. Josette had been staring down at her hands and Barnabas had been staring at her. She happened to see Barnabas place his hand over Josette's - a very forward move for him - as well as Josette's response. The way Josette gazed at Barnabas…there was no mistaking it. It was very much the same gaze that Barnabas had given to her.

_Mr. Hamilton certainly has some competition. _

Though Carolyn knew even as she thought that about Frank, that Josette did not returned his affection. Carolyn hadn't expected her to, given her tragic situation.

_Yet she obviously felt something for Barnabas last night…_

"I had quite a time trying to get David to go back to bed after I caught him down here talking to Barnabas. He wanted to stay up until you returned. I'm sure he wanted to speak with Josette. Vicki told me that when he isn't going on about his little friend, Sarah, he's constantly talking about Josette."

"Well, he seems to have become attached to Josette," Carolyn said. "Mother, have you met Sarah yet?"

Carolyn had almost forgotten the little girl that David said he often played with in the woods near Collinwood. No one in the house had met her, or even seen her for that matter. Carolyn wondered where the girl's parents were. Who would let their ten year old child play alone in the woods?

"No, I haven't. I've asked David to bring her here so that we could meet her, he said that she wouldn't come. Perhaps she's just very shy. I hope David can convince her to allow us to meet her. It troubles me that he plays with her so much and we don't know who she is or where in Collinsport she comes from. However, I must admit that right now I find David's closeness to Josette a bit more troubling."

Carolyn stared at her mother in confusion. "Why?"

"I'm concerned that David is associating Josette with Josette Collins. Carolyn, you remember when I told you how much David loved the portrait of Josette at the Old House, and how upset he was when Barnabas had it taken down and placed to in the room upstairs?"

Carolyn nodded and tried to keep herself from frowning.

"Since Josette resembles our ancestor so much, I think David has become taken with the idea that she is Josette Collins."

"Mother, that's silly!" Carolyn protested with a forced laugh. "Surely David knows better than that!"

"Darling, you know how much he loves ghosts, especially the ghost of Josette Collins. You know how many times Roger had to tell him not to sneak into the Old House to see the portrait. It made poor Barnabas so uncomfortable."

"I remember," Carolyn said, recalling clearly how furious Roger had been with David for disobeying his orders. Victoria had also gotten upset because David broke the promise he made to her to not go to the Old House unless Barnabas invited him.

"I told him not to mention our ancestor to Josette, and so far, he hasn't. I'm still concerned. It isn't good for him to be so fixated on a woman that's been dead for over a century, and it wouldn't be right for him to transfer his love for the portrait to Josette based on her appearance."

"I wouldn't be so concerned, Mother," Carolyn assured her, as well as herself, with a small smile. "If he hasn't mentioned anything about ghosts and portraits to her, I don't think any harm will come of it."

"Perhaps you're right."

Carolyn didn't say anything to that, but inwardly, she realized that what she had said to her mother was not much different than her own earlier thoughts of Barnabas's apparent affection for Josette.

_There's a difference, of course. David may in some way believe that Josette is Josette Collins, but Barnabas knows better. _

"If you and Josette go out today, please make sure you're home by the early evening. The danger of being out at night aside, Roger is due in from Bangor and I want her to meet him before dinner. And if you wouldn't mind, would the two of you stop by the Old House and invite Barnabas? We don't see nearly enough of him. He's family, and yet he's so…."

"Distant?" Carolyn finished her mother's sentence while she sought for the right word to describe their English cousin.

"Yes, I suppose he is. I hope he doesn't feel that he has to be. I've wanted him to feel welcome here."

"I think he does. He's just very private, that's all. He likes his solitude."

"Too many years of solitude cannot be good for anyone," her mother said quietly, and Carolyn knew all too well that she was thinking of Carolyn's father, and the secret that had kept her shut away from the outside world for eighteen years.

"I'll just have to convince Barnabas to come," Carolyn said, laying a hand on her mother's arm a moment before rising from her chair.

_And if I can't convince him, then I'm sure Josette's presence will…

* * *

_

Carolyn studied Josette as the two of them sat at a table near the window in the coffee shop. Josette was staring out of it at the occasional car or person that would pass by, apparently deep in thought about something. Carolyn had downed most of her coffee, but Josette had taken one sip from her cup, grimaced, and placed the cup firmly back down on the table. It hadn't been touched since. Carolyn had her elbows on the table and her chin resting on her hands, but Josette was seated primly in her chair, with her hands crossed neatly in front of her.

It was in small, insignificant moments like this one that Carolyn realized how different they were, as well as recognized little traits and characteristics that even the lack of a true identity couldn't erase from the woman across from her.

Josette had been used to a formal atmosphere previously, that much grew more and more obvious to Carolyn every day. It made perfect sense then that Josette would be ill at ease in casual coffee shops and places like the Blue Whale. Carolyn thought that Josette could use a little informal fun, even though her motives for bringing her to the coffee shop weren't that simple.

Carolyn had hoped that she could get Josette to open up about her encounter with Barnabas. She was itching to know what Josette thought and felt about him, especially since Barnabas, for once, had been so easy to read.

Just as she had opened her mouth to outright ask Josette, Sheriff Patterson had entered the coffee shop and stopped at their table to say hello. Carolyn quickly introduced him to Josette and told him that she was a guest at Collinwood without mentioning anything of her memory loss. The Sheriff had looked curiously at Josette and offered only her a polite greeting and friendly smile. Carolyn wasn't sure if he'd taken note of her slight resemblance to Maggie Evans. It was Carolyn that couldn't help herself in asking if the police were any closer to finding Maggie's kidnapper. After sighing heavily, Patterson had informed her that there were no leads and that it looked as though the case would soon have to be closed if no clues were found.

"Unfortunately, poor Miss Evans can't tell us," he'd said sadly, before excusing himself to speak with a customer at the counter.

"Carolyn, if you would rather not speak of it, I'll understand," Josette finally spoke, turning her attention rather suddenly on Carolyn, "but….will you tell me more about her? About Maggie Evans?"

Carolyn was taken back by Josette's question, but she supposed in retrospect that she should have anticipated it. Josette had to have heard Maggie's name mentioned several times by now. Collinsport was so small and the news of Maggie's death had hit everyone in town hard, including those at Collinwood.

"I'm afraid I can only tell you what I know and that isn't much at all. Maggie disappeared for weeks, no one knew what happened to her. It was almost like she just vanished into the night. The police and her father searched endlessly for her, as did a friend of mine named Joe Haskell. He loved Maggie. Even though I was never close to her myself, my heart ached for him throughout the whole ordeal. Her father eventually found her on the beach, and she died on the way to the hospital. She wasn't able to tell him who had taken her."

"That's horrible," Josette said softly. "They are still trying to find the one who held her prisoner?"

"I don't think they ever will," Carolyn admitted. "It was all so peculiar, mysterious even. I remember that she was sick before she disappeared. Vicki spent some time with her at night because she was found once wandering around in Eagle Hill cemetery. She didn't know why she was there, and when Burke and Vicki found her she was alone. They thought she might have been sleep walking."

"No wonder Mrs. Stoddard wishes for us to remain inside during the evening," Josette said, and Carolyn thought she saw her shudder.

Carolyn, feeling disturbed after recounting the circumstances of Maggie's disappearance to Josette, saw an opportunity to change the subject to a more pleasant one and went with it.

"Speaking of mother, she had a request for us," Carolyn announced. "She wanted us to go to the Old House before we return home and invite Barnabas to dinner tonight. Uncle Roger's returning and Mrs. Johnson has a special meal planned for the family. Uncle Roger would say that if I had any pity, I would advise Barnabas _not_ to come for that very reason."

Josette giggled girlishly at Carolyn's sarcasm and she grinned, pleased at her accomplishment. No more doom and gloom, at least for the time being.

"We have some time before then, what do you say we find some trouble to get into?" she suggested teasingly.

"Trouble?" Josette repeated, her smile turning into a frown. Carolyn laughed, amused that her words had been taken literally.

"It's only an expression. Come on, I have an idea."

Carolyn grabbed Josette's hand and pulled her out of the coffee shop. She still wanted to ask Josette about Barnabas, but she figured there would be plenty of time to do that on their way to the Old House.

For the time being, she was determined to have some simple fun.

* * *

"You're awfully quiet this afternoon." 

Burke and Frank had met for lunch at the Blue Whale, but Burke had barely said a word since he came in and sat down at the table. He ordered a drink and sipped it in silence. Frank knew something was on his mind.

"Sorry about that. I had a run in with George before I came in," Burke said. He must have seen the blank look on Frank's face. "George is the local Sheriff. I asked him if he had any news about the Maggie Evans case. He said he didn't. He even went as far as to say that the case will likely be closed soon. That bothers me, Frank. That troubles me very much."

"It would bother anyone, Burke. It bothered me when you told me and this is my first time visiting Collinsport."

"It's more than that. Maggie was a good girl. It's been a nightmare for her father and her boyfriend, Joe Haskell. Vicki was good friends with her. She was very upset when Maggie died. The look on her face for days afterward….I hated seeing her like that."

The reason for Burke's mood was suddenly crystal clear to Frank.

"You're worried about Vicki."

"I am," Burke acknowledged with a nod. "If the case is closed and the man responsible for Maggie's kidnapping isn't caught, then the women here are still in danger, including Vicki, Carolyn, and Josette, if she continues to remain at Collinwood. No woman in Collinsport will be safe. I won't stand for that."

Frank heard the grim determination in Burke's voice, and he knew that his friend would make it his personal mission to find the culprit himself if the police failed. He couldn't say that he didn't expect it, and he could understand it completely.

But just _how_ was Burke going to find the man, when the police obviously had nothing to go on? They certainly weren't dealing with an ordinary criminal.

"What are you going to do? Where will you start? From what you've told me, the circumstances surrounding the kidnapping and the attacks are far from normal. The way you described Maggie's illness, the marks on her throat, the way she was found in the cemetery….Burke, none of it makes sense. If I hadn't learned about it from you, I might not have believed it happened at all. And then there's the fact that there hasn't been any recent attacks. Maybe whoever was responsible isn't in town anymore."

"I don't know why, but I don't think so," Burke said slowly. "Call it a gut feeling. I think he's still out there, and I'm going do everything I can to find him. And if I do find him….well, let's just say he won't be able to hurt anyone else."

Burke's voice turned harsh.

"I'll make sure of it."

Frank frowned, too concerned for his friend not to speak up and offer a warning.

"Be careful, Burke. I don't blame you for wanting to go after this guy yourself if the sheriff is forced to close the book on his investigation, but this man, whoever he is, sounds dangerous. I know you don't want to lose Vicki….just remember that she feels the same way about you."


	15. Death's Dreams

A/N: Hope everyone enjoys this chapter! Thanks so much for the continued reviews, and please keep them coming! I appreciate hearing all of your thoughts on this story, so feel free to comment. :) It has taken on a life of its own.

* * *

**Chapter 14: _Death's Dreams_**

"What did you think of it? Did you have fun?"

Carolyn nudged Josette as they walked the lonely, narrow path that would take them to the Old House. The sun had just set, and the darkness made it hard for them to see their way through the dense woods.

She'd had every intention of making it to the Old House before dark, but had lost track of time when she had gotten a friend of Joe's to take them out on his boat. It had been such a good day for it. The afternoon sunshine made the air warm and much more inviting than it often was. Carolyn hadn't wanted to pass up such a perfect opportunity.

"It was…..pleasant," Josette answered vaguely, in that way of hers that let Carolyn know that there were thoughts, opinions even, that she was keeping to herself.

With a small smile, Carolyn sighed, ready to let it go, when Josette glanced at her with a thoughtful expression.

"Actually, there was something about it that was almost familiar to me."

Carolyn heard just the barest hint of excitement in Josette's voice and realized that Josette was speaking of what could possibly be one of her lost memories.

"You remember being on a boat?"

"No, I remember nothing really. It was not much more than a sensation that I had been on one before. What upset me was how I felt when we were out there, Carolyn. When I looked back at Collinsport, and then down at the water, I felt this emptiness…as though a void had opened up inside of me."

"If it's a memory that brought that on it must not have been a very good one," Carolyn said in sympathy, noticing that the small bit of excitement had disappeared as Josette described what she had experienced.

"I've had only feelings and nothing more, and yet…..sometimes, like today on the boat, I'm afraid to remember," Josette said suddenly, fiercely. "Sometimes I think my memories would only frighten and torment me. Why? Why would I think that? What was my life like before I was found here?"

"I don't know, and I would try not to let it bother you. I'm sure it isn't all that unusual for someone to recall bad feelings or experiences more easily than the good ones, but that doesn't mean that the good ones aren't there."

Carolyn sincerely hoped that that was the case. She couldn't imagine what it would do to Josette if she regained her memory only to discover that her past was filled with nothing but misery.

"I can only hope so. I'm sorry for getting so emotional," Josette said quietly.

"There's nothing to be sorry for!" Carolyn assured her, then smiled as she stared ahead of them. "Come on, I can see the Old House. Barnabas will have to come back to Collinwood with us now. Mother wouldn't be at all happy if we come back unaccompanied since it's so dark out."

The two fell into a companionable silence as they approached the old mansion. Carolyn was eager to get to the house. The darkness made it nearly impossible to see, and the warmth of the day was long gone. She regretted her decision to take Josette sailing. If they hadn't spent so much time in town, they would've been at the Old House before nightfall. She wrapped her coat more securely around her body in an attempt to rid herself of the chill.

Josette didn't seem to mind the night air or the darkness. In fact, Carolyn could plainly see that her attention was focused solely on the Old House, on the flickering candlelight that was visible in the drawing room window. Her expression had changed from one of despair over her memories to one of anticipation.

_She's as eager to get to the Old House as I am…but our reasons are quite different, I'm sure of that… _

Carolyn didn't know whether to smile or frown.

"I've wanted to ask you all day," Carolyn began, figuring that it was as good time as any to bring it up, "how you felt about Barn-"

She didn't get a chance to finish her cousin's name. Josette had turned abruptly and was staring at one side of the portico with wide eyes.

"What is it?"

"I saw someone standing there. A little girl," Josette answered softly. "I thought she was staring at me."

Carolyn peered into the darkness and only saw the large columns that surrounded the house and the deserted, weather worn portico they stood on. Even if a little girl had been there, she could hardly imagine how Josette would have known that the girl was staring at her. It was so dark, Carolyn wouldn't have been able to make out the child's face!

She followed Josette's cautious steps as they reached the portico and climbed the stairs. They crept slowly to the spot where Josette had said the little girl had been standing and stopped, both searching for her.

"What did she look like?"

Carolyn doubted that Josette had really seen a girl. She couldn't help but remember Sarah, however, and how David played with her in the woods. David had said that his friend seemed to go where she pleased and always came to him at random. There was a small chance that Josette had seen a glimpse of the mysterious Sarah, though she thought it was highly unlikely that Sarah would be playing near the Old House at such an hour.

"I cannot say, the darkness made it impossible for me to see her fully."

"If you couldn't see her that well, then why did you say she was staring at you?" Carolyn asked, bewildered by what Josette had just told her.

"I only said that I thought she was, Carolyn," Josette said. "It was….a feeling."

A shiver ran down Carolyn's spine, and it was not because she was cold.

In the distance, almost inaudible, was the sound of something…..something that could have been music.

Music from a flute floating through the air.

* * *

Once he reached Josette's room and deposited the antique trunk on the floor in front of the bed, Willie let his shoulders sag in defeat. There was just no talking Barnabas out of having the costume party. He knew that, though knowing it hadn't kept him from trying. 

The party was a bad idea, only bad things could come from it. Inviting the Collins family to the house, dressed as their ancestors from the past, it was asking for trouble in Willie's opinion. His opinion didn't matter much to Barnabas though, and in the end Barnabas wouldn't listen to him no matter how much sense he made. He thought he made plenty of sense, warning Barnabas that if he invited the family to the Old House for the party, they would start thinking that they could visit all of the time. In the night, and during the _day_. Barnabas didn't seem too worried about that, he just said he would deal with it when the time came.

All Barnabas worried about was Josette.

The whole party was designed as a way for Barnabas to get what he wanted more than anything else - Josette. The risks didn't matter to him. Willie didn't like the idea of the girl at Collinwood coming to the party dressed as Josette du Pres. The image of her in one of Josette's gowns disturbed him more than his memories of Maggie dressed as Josette.

Barnabas had spoken of nothing but the party since dusk, going on and on about how the party would recreate a moment out of the past, a moment that would "return Josette's memories to her".

That was what made this girl different from Maggie. With Maggie, Barnabas knew he was only _recreating_ Josette. With this girl, Barnabas truly believed that she_ was_ Josette.

Willie didn't know what to believe. There were too many coincidences….too many connections between the two women. Her name was the worst. Of all the names in the world that Willie could think of, why had she chosen _Josette_?

_Somethin' bad's gonna happen if Barnabas has this party. I know it will._

Willie knelt down next to the trunk, opened the lid, and lifted one of the dresses out of it. He held it up, examining the soft, expensive material and decorative detail. He glanced at the portrait of Josette and then back at the dress, recognizing instantly that it was on of hers. He took it over to the bed and laid it down carefully on top of the pillows.

The second dress he pulled out of the trunk was a light shade of blue. It was a child's dress. As he held it in his hands, he realized that it must have belonged to Barnabas's sister, the ghost that haunted the grounds of the estate.

Sarah.

He wondered if he should hide it, put it somewhere so Barnabas wouldn't see it. Barnabas didn't like it when Willie mentioned her name. Though he had accepted that Sarah really was a ghost and had appeared to Willie, it bothered him that Sarah hadn't made her presence known to him. Willie guessed that Sarah was afraid of Barnabas, or angry at what he was and refused to appear to him because of it. He suspected that deep down, Barnabas knew that and that was what he couldn't accept.

Willie placed the blue dress back into the trunk, planning to remove it before he took the trunk to Collinwood in the morning, and went to gather Josette's dress. He folded it on top of Sarah's and closed the lid.

He left Josette's room and was on his way to the stairs when he heard the sound of voices below.

One was Carolyn's. The other belonged to….._her_.

Josette.

_Why couldn't she have listened to me and left Collinsport! Now it's too late for her. It's too late…_

He paused at the top of the stairs, unsure of whether to go down there and join them or not. Barnabas hadn't yet found out that he had met Josette already, before Barnabas was even aware of her presence at Collinwood.

Willie hoped that Barnabas would never find out. He would really be in for it then.

"Willie, do not just stand there at the top of the stairs, come down here and join us."

Barnabas had turned from Carolyn and Josette to look up at him. His stare cut through Willie and almost made his heart stop.

_Does he know? Did he find out? Please don't let him find out…._

"Sure, Barnabas," he said nervously.

Once he reached the bottom of the stairs, Carolyn and Josette both smiled at him, though Carolyn's smile was smaller and not as genuine.

"It was very good of you to escort Josette home when she came here in the evening after getting lost in the woods."

Willie's heart _did_ stop. For a moment, it didn't beat at all. The fear that flew into it made it forget to keep beating, and he wasn't sure that it would remember that it needed to beat again in order for him to stay alive.

Barnabas glared at him with narrowed, hardened eyes, silently informing him that he would pay for his silence.

Willie shuddered, feeling like he was going to be sick from fear. He struggled to hide it from Carolyn and Josette, and managed to only because he knew that letting them see his misery would make things worse for him.

Barnabas shifted his gaze from Willie to Josette, and the change in his eyes was immediate. The cold anger was replaced with warm affection.

"To do what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?"

"My mother," Carolyn answered, apparently unperturbed that Barnabas made no move to take his eyes off of Josette. "Uncle Roger returned from Bangor this afternoon, and she wanted us to invite you to dinner tonight."

"I see," Barnabas said in the pleasant tone of voice that he used with everyone but Willie, who watched the exchange with a queasy stomach.

"Will you come? Mother would be very happy, and we want you to come."

"Very much," Josette added abruptly, before she blushed and looked away.

_They just met last night and she's already feelin' somethin' for him! Surely he didn't….please, not yet….there's gotta be some time left…_

When Willie glanced at her neck, he saw no marks there. He held back a sigh of relief as he realized that Barnabas hadn't attacked her like he had Maggie. Yet.

"I would like to," Barnabas replied smoothly. "But I'm afraid I can only come if I may be excused from dinner. You see, I ate before I returned here and I am not hungry. However, I do wish to speak to your mother and Roger, and I would enjoy an evening with the family."

"I'm glad," Carolyn said. "Besides, even if you had declined our invitation, Josette and I would've had to force you to walk us back to Collinwood. Mother would be furious if we returned alone. She has been very concerned about any of us wandering around at night by ourselves ever since…well, what happened to Maggie."

Willie watched Barnabas as he masked his dismay over the mention of Maggie and studied the troubled expression on Josette's face, no doubt uncomfortable with the idea that Josette knew anything at all about Maggie, even her name.

"What happened to her was so horrible," Josette said. "No one deserves such a fate."

"I agree."

Barnabas's voice was quiet, and he sounded so sincere that Willie would have believed that Barnabas had meant it, if he wasn't fully and frighteningly aware that Barnabas was responsible for the fate of Maggie Evans.

If he hadn't already felt sick, he would have after such a convincing performance.

"Well, we should probably start heading back, or we'll be late," Carolyn suggested, obviously anxious to get away from the talk of Maggie.

Willie couldn't blame her for that. She wasn't alone. He was sure that everyone in the foyer wanted to forget about Maggie…..for very different reasons.

"Of course."

Barnabas gathered his cloak and cane and paused, waiting until Carolyn and Josette were outside on the portico before he walked over to where Willie stood. Willie began to tremble as Barnabas stared at him coldly.

"I will deal with you later."

* * *

"Really, Roger! That was hardly an appropriate story to tell at the dinner table, especially in front of our guests," Elizabeth said, her voice full of disapproval. 

The two entered the drawing room ahead of the others and Roger went to pour himself a brandy.

"Oh, come now, Liz. I took what could've been a dreadfully dull dinner and made it a bit more….entertaining."

"Entertaining is hardly the word I would use."

As Josette followed Barnabas into the drawing room, she listened to the exchange between Roger and Elizabeth with a curious interest and attempted to hide the small smile that played at the corners of her lips. Her face was still flushed from Roger's shockingly detailed account of an incident at the cannery, where he had explained to her that he worked. Behind her, she could hear Carolyn's muffled laughter. In front of her, Barnabas gazed down at the floor. She was uncertain if he was amused or appalled.

She was not certain what she had been expecting when it came to Roger, but he had surprised her. He was very different from Elizabeth. She had made the assumption that Roger was head of the family, and had found out rather quickly upon his return from Bangor that the title was reserved for Elizabeth instead. Something about that seemed peculiar to her, and yet, strangely enough, also the slightest bit satisfying.

In the short time she had been at Collinwood, Josette had come to respect Elizabeth Collins Stoddard a great deal, and not only for her kindness in allowing Josette to remain on the estate even though she was not a member of the family. She saw a quiet strength in the older woman that she found herself envying.

"I'm glad you're home, Uncle Roger," Carolyn said as she sat down in the chair next to the one Josette had taken. "Collinwood just isn't the same without you."

"Well, it's nice to know that someone in this house missed me while I was away, Kitten," he replied, staring pointedly at his sister with a raised eyebrow, who sighed and looked at him with what Josette thought to be exasperated affection.

"Now, Roger, how can you say that no one missed you? Mrs. Johnson went to a lot of trouble this evening. Why, she even made your favorite desert."

The underlying hint of mirth in Elizabeth's tone followed by Roger's grimace caused Carolyn give Josette a knowing grin. Josette's smile grew, and she glanced at Barnabas. He offered only a very slight, almost sorrowful smile.

Her eyes lingered on him even after he had turned his attention to Roger and Elizabeth. She studied the contours of his face, the immaculate appearance of his clothes, and how stiffly he stood in comparison to Roger.

Though it was improper of her to stare at him in such a fashion, she found it extremely difficult not to. When he was near she seemed to lose herself in his presence. Her heart raced and her mind grew clouded, as if a fog had drifted over her thoughts and cloaked them in its shroud.

She was not alone in her staring. She had felt his eyes on her many times throughout the evening.

_What is it between us? What is it that lures us to each other?_

"I'm glad you could join us this evening, Barnabas," Roger said, clearly eager to forget about the evening's desert. "You live so near and yet we never see you."

"That is a fault of mine and one I wish to rectify right away. That is one of the reasons I came to Collinwood this evening. I wanted to speak to both you and Elizabeth."

"Well, Josette, I think that's our cue to leave," Carolyn announced, rising from her chair with a smile.

"Of course."

Finally forced to tear her gaze away from Barnabas, Josette rose from her own chair and walked with Carolyn to the doorway.

"Please, do not feel that you have to go. You are both free to stay."

Carolyn shook her head. "Oh, no, we'll let the three of you talk. We'll find something to occupy us."

Carolyn reached for Josette arm's and led her out of the drawing room. Josette looked back to see Barnabas staring after her. Their eyes met only for a moment before Carolyn closed the doors, blocking their view of each other.

"Josette, I've wanted to ask you something all day and I never got the chance to, but now I don't think I need to. I think I already know the answer."

It took some effort for Josette to compose herself, for she had an irrational yearning to open the doors again so that she could look into his eyes once more. She felt so different when he stared at her. The lost girl with no memory vanished, and a woman took her place.

A woman that she did not know, and yet desperately longed to be.

"What did you want to ask me, Carolyn?"

Carolyn leaned against one of the doors and folded her arms. Her posture unsettled Josette. She had come to know Carolyn's traits rather well, and the stance combined with the knowledge of her friend's perceptiveness caused Josette to realize that she might not be prepared for what Carolyn was going to say.

"How you feel about my cousin."

Carolyn said it so simply, as though the words were nothing, but they were enough to send the heat rushing to Josette's face.

"I see the way you look at him," Carolyn continued when she found herself unable to answer. "And I see the way he looks at you. I've never seen him look that way at anyone else. You don't have to tell me, it's obvious that you're as drawn to him as he seems to be to you."

In the silence that that ensued, Josette could almost _feel_ him. Though he was in the drawing room and she was in the foyer, she could still _feel _his presence so strongly, as if they were still in the same room.

_How can I explain such a feeling to Carolyn when I cannot explain it to myself?_

Josette saw something in Carolyn's expression change as Carolyn waited for her to reply. The teasing smile that Josette expected to be present was there, but not in full. It seemed to be in conflict with the slightest frown.

"Does it disturb you? How I may feel about Barnabas and how he may feel about me?"

"No, of course not," Carolyn answered quickly, a bit _too_ quickly for Josette. "It's just that, well…..I guess I'm just worried, that's all. I'm worried about both of you. You're in such an awful situation with your memory, and Barnabas is a very sensitive man…I just don't want to see either of you get hurt."

"I'm grateful that you care so much about me, and I can certainly understand your caring for Barnabas. I assure you that I've questioned myself over what I feel for Barnabas and how inappropriate it is time and time again since I met him. I cannot change it, Carolyn. I cannot even explain what it is exactly that I feel. I can only tell to you that when I see him, when I think of him, it's as if I become someone else. I forget that I have no memory because when he's near me, I…"

She paused and walked over to the portrait of the first Barnabas Collins, afraid to admit to Carolyn what she was about to. She knew that Carolyn would not understand.

"When he's near me, I know myself," she finished finally. "I have this…sense of being that I've not felt since I was found here. Often I feel out of place, like I belong somewhere else, except when I'm with him. It is easy to say that it's because of my memory, but is that all it truly is? "

"Josette, it's not unreasonable for you to feel out of place, it's normal. This isn't your home and this isn't where you came from. Maybe Barnabas reminds you of someone you knew, someone from your past, and your subconscious connects him to that person. That could account for why you're so drawn to him."

Perhaps," Josette concurred, but she was plagued with doubts. There was more to it than that, she was _sure_ of it.

_But how can I be sure?_

_If only I could remember…I know that if I could, I would discover the answer to that question. The answer lies within my mind, somewhere within my memories._

"He could remind me of someone from my past, but why would he be drawn to me?"

"I don't know," Carolyn said slowly. "If it wasn't completely impossible, I would say that the two of you knew each other somehow, but Barnabas lived in England all of his life until he came here. Besides, why would he keep knowing you a secret from the rest of the family? Why would he keep it from you? He would've told you."

Josette gazed thoughtfully at the portrait, at the elusive eyes and expression of the eighteenth century Barnabas Collins.

"You are right, Carolyn. He would not keep it a secret if he had known me."

_There is no reason in the world he could have for keeping such a thing from me, not when he surely realizes how much it would mean to me. He heard me speak of my past, how much I longed to remember…_

"Will you excuse me? I would like to go out to the terrace for some air."

"You aren't getting another headache, are you?" Carolyn asked.

"No, I'm not. I just feel the air will be good for me."

Josette continued to be touched by Carolyn's concern for her. She wondered if anyone from her previous life cared as much for her as some of the people at Collinwood did.

"Alright. I think I'll go upstairs and check on David. Vicki asked me if I would make sure that David finished his homework over the day's lesson before she left with Burke. I bet he hasn't even started it yet."

Josette watched Carolyn climb the stairs, then made her way outside to the terrace.

* * *

Barnabas found Josette sitting on the bench beyond the terrace and for a moment, he just absorbed the ethereal image of her veiled in the night's shadow. 

He would never tire of watching her. It was a gift that had been given to him mysteriously, one that he gratefully accepted and treasured. Just nights ago she had been lost to him, and now she was within his reach again. Once he held her, he would never let her go.

_This time it will be different for us, Josette. It must be. I cannot lose you again. _

_I know that you loved me. If Angelique had not tormented you so you would not have thrown yourself from Widows' Hill. You may have been frightened of me, but I could have shown you that you had nothing to fear. I would have protected you, taken care of you…_

_Look at me, Josette. _

She turned to him in surprise and quickly got up from the bench. The almost anxious way she glanced about reminded him of the time she had pulled away from him in the Old House drawing room, afraid that their families would find them alone together.

"Barnabas." She greeted him in a soft voice and finally smiled at him. Even though the smile seemed to be one of hesitance, the sight of it pleased him.

He loved her smiles. He could vividly recall every one that she had ever given him, especially the one she had bestowed upon him when they had first seen each other on the day she had arrived from Martinique. He had been so nervous. He had feared that he would not be what she had expected, but a light far brighter than any candle flame had entered her eyes as they had embraced, and his nerves had been eased.

They had shared such innocence, and so many dreams for the future.

And it had all been destroyed.

His dalliance with Angelique had brought he and his family, all of his loved ones, suffering and death. His hatred for her was nearly as strong as his love for Josette.

_I will not think of Angelique any longer tonight. Angelique is gone. She will never come between Josette and I again. _

_I will not defile this moment by continuing to remember her…_

"I've been searching for you, Josette."

_For such a long time, my love._

"You have? I must apologize, I did not think anyone would be looking for me."

She remained standing as he approached her. She was as still as one of the angel statues in Eagle Hill Cemetery, only she was far more lovely than any angel.

_Perhaps she is my angel. My angel without wings._

"There is no need for an apology," he assured her quietly. "I've found you. That is all that matters."

As she gazed at him, he allowed himself to fall forward into the depths of her eyes, allowed himself to hold on to the hope that somewhere within them, he would see the love she'd had for him years ago.

The love and not the fear.

He would not be able to bear seeing the fear that had been in them on that agonizing night at Widows' Hill, just before she threw herself from the cliff to escape him.

"May I ask why you were looking for me?"

Her question drew him away from his remembrance of desperation and death.

"I wish to invite you to my party. It will take place two nights from now, and it is what I was speaking to my cousins about earlier this evening. I would be delighted if you were to attend."

"A party?"

He saw the sparkle in her eyes and smiled at the glimpse he was given of the girl that he had met in Martinique. The girl who had not yet known heartache and tragedy.

"It is a costume party for the family, to celebrate the restoration of the Old House. I thought it fitting that we all dress as those who lived in it years ago and recreate a moment out of the past."

_A moment, Josette, when you and I were happy, when we dreamed of our life together in that house. Surely you will remember then. You will remember me and realize that we are meant to be together now, in this time. _

_It was fate that brought you back to me. _

"But I am not a member of the Collins family, I do not belong at such a party, I-"

He silenced her protest by taking her hand in his and sliding his fingers gently over her warm skin. He stepped closer to her, captivated by the way she was staring at him, the way her eyes seemed to glow in the moonlight. He was lost in his love for her, utterly undone by her presence.

"You do belong at my party, more so than anyone here," he murmured, his voice low and thick with emotions that he fought to keep under careful control.

"Who would I be at your party?"

Her question was asked in a whisper. He could sense her nervousness, and her excitement. It matched his own.

Though her mind did not remember him, her heart did. He was certain of it.

_You will be only who you are, Josette._

"The beautiful girl from the French island of Martinque who was to be the bride of Barnabas Collins. You will be Josette du Pres."

* * *

_Josette walked through Eagle Hill in a white wedding gown. A lace veil covered her face, acting as a curtain between herself and those that were buried in the earth. _

_The dead._

_A voice called to her in a moan that was carried on the wings of the wind. She was moving slowly to the source of the voice, even as her heart pounded in fear and cried out to her to run away. She wanted to listen to its cry. _

_She was not dead! She did not belong in this place!_

_But long ago she had once wished only to be amongst the dead, to rest forever in the ground below her feet. The words she had uttered then echoed through the cemetery, tormenting her with their sincerity and sadness. _

"_I am dead now, I cannot return to you. We are lost to each other forever."_

_She had meant those words. She had been dead._

_And now the dead were ordering her to return, demanding that she join them in their eternal sleep. The voice, a man's voice, swept inside of her soul and left a chill within it, a chill that would spread through her body and find its way into her heart. Her heart would stop._

_She would die._

_Ahead of her he stood, his face hidden behind bandages. He reached out to her and seized her by the arm. With his free hand, he pointed to the headstone behind him, then to the ground along side of it where the dirt had been parted in preparation for a new grave. _

_Her grave._

"_No," she whispered fearfully, struggling to free her arm from his cold grasp. _

_He brought one hand up to her face and lifted the veil. She was trembling as he took her hand in his and lifted it to her cheek. He pressed her own hand against her face and forced her to stroke her fingers over her skin._

_Her skin…_

_Her horribly deformed skin._

_There was nothing left of her face but mottled lumps of flesh and bone..._


	16. Friends

A/N - The next chapter starts the costume party (finally!), and the pace picks up considerably, so anyone wishing that I would just get on with it already, don't worry. :) This story has grown since I originally started writing it. Though it still revolves around Barnabas and Josette, I'll just say that the relationship between Barnabas and Willie (a favorite of mine on the show) will grow in importance as the story continues. Hope this chapter is good, it gave me fits for some reason. Thanks for continuing to read, and please leave me a review!

* * *

**Chapter 15: _Friends_**

Carolyn sat patiently on Josette's bed and watched her friend as she stood in front of the full length mirror. Josette's eyes were transfixed on it, and she was examining every detail of her features.

"You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."

Truth be told, Carolyn wanted Josette to tell her what had caused her to wake up screaming in such a way. Those screams had scared her nearly to death. She hadn't known what she would find after hurrying into Josette's room. She had found Josette sitting up in bed with her hands covering her face, trying to suppress her quiet sobbing. After repeatedly asking her what was wrong, Carolyn had given up because she hadn't received any answer. Once her sobs had ended, Josette had abruptly gotten up from the bed and ran to the mirror, and that was where she had been standing for the past several minutes.

"I will go mad if I stay silent," Josette whispered.

She turned from the mirror and lifted her robe off of the chair by the window and wrapped herself in it, clutching her arms and rubbing them as if she were cold.

"Come sit down." Carolyn motioned to the empty space beside her on the bed in concern. "You look as if you might faint!"

Josette lowered herself back onto the bed and faced Carolyn, her expression full of fear.

"The dream….it was so real. I've dreamed before, but this is the first one I've remembered," Josette began, "I was in a wedding gown and I was in Eagle Hill cemetery. Someone was calling my name and I was walking to them. I did not want to go to them. I wanted to run away. I kept walking, wishing I could run away, but I could not. I had to go them. I was so afraid. The person calling me….I knew he was dead. I was not dead….but I had been dead…."

"I don't understand," Carolyn said, stunned by what Josette was describing to her.

"Neither do I," Josette said, still visibly shaken by the dream. "I just remember hearing my own voice. It came from the air around me. I do not know what it meant or why I would say what I did."

"What did you hear yourself say?"

Carolyn saw Josette shudder and close her eyes. She waited, the only sound in the room was that of the clock ticking, and she had to stop herself from shuddering as well.

" 'I am dead now. I cannot return to you. We are lost to each other forever.'….I will never forget those words, not for as long as I live! I think even when I die I will remember them! Why would I say that? I do not know what it could mean!"

Carolyn suppressed the frown that tried to form on her face. She didn't want Josette to know how unsettling her words were to her. Josette was distressed enough, and for a very good reason. She didn't need to add to her distress.

_I have a feeling that neither of us will get much sleep tonight…_

"Are you sure it was your voice that you heard in the dream?"

"Carolyn, I may not have my memories, but I think I can recognize my own voice!" Josette snapped, surprising Carolyn with the fury that flitted briefly across her face before she looked away.

"Please forgive me." Josette offered an immediate apology. "I have no right to get so angry with you. I know you only want to help."

"Don't worry about it. You're frustrated and frightened. I don't blame you," Carolyn said. "The dream sounds awful."

"I've only told you some of it. I saw the man who was calling my name. He was standing in front of a grave. He had bandages covering his head, and his eyes were all that I could see of him. He reached out and clasped my arm and would not release me. He gestured to the grave. There was an empty place beside it….and I knew it was for me! It was to be my grave! That was why he was calling me! He took my hand, and he…he put it to my face, and…..and….my face…."

Carolyn could tell that Josette was fighting the urge to press her hands against her face again. She was gripping the bed sheets tightly, twisting them over and over again within her fingers.

"My face…it was horribly disfigured….I was so afraid when I opened my eyes! I was so afraid I would see myself in the mirror as I must have appeared in that dream!"

She started to sob again, and Carolyn reached over and placed her arm around her shoulders.

"It was just a dream, none of it was real," Carolyn assured her. "Your face is still as pretty as it was when Burke and Frank found you," she added with a smile, trying to make light of the situation.

"I know it could not have been real…" Josette brushed the tears from eyes. "I know because the man was Jeremiah Collins, Carolyn. I saw his name carved into the gravestone."

"Jeremiah Collins?" Carolyn repeated. A knot began to form in her stomach.

She recalled the day that she and Josette had walked through Eagle Hill together. Josette had stopped at Jeremiah's grave and had asked her about him. At the time she had figured that Josette was only curious about him because he was a Collins.

"Why would you dream of Jeremiah Collins?"

"I do not know. I remember passing by his grave when we went through Eagle Hill."

"There has to be more to it than that for him to play such a role in your dream," Carolyn insisted gently. "What else could've made you think of him? Could it have been something you heard, or perhaps something someone told you?"

"The costume party," Josette said softly, as if the answer had come to her very suddenly.

_The costume party… Oh, no…_

Carolyn had been told by Roger before she had gone to bed about Barnabas's party and the idea of everyone attending it as a member of the original Collins family. Carolyn had thought it was a bit of an eccentric thing to do, but she knew how enthralled Barnabas was by the past. Despite having doubts about the family dressing as their ancestors, she had reasoned that it would be good for them to go to a party, especially her mother. Carolyn had been excited at the prospect of her mother actually going to a party.

_It hadn't even crossed my mind that Barnabas would invite Josette. I don't know why that it didn't. I should've known that he would invite her right away, as soon as Uncle Roger told me!_

"Barnabas asked me to attend. He said that I belong there," Josette said, unaware of Carolyn's growing apprehension.

"Josette…which member of the family did he suggest that you come to the party as?"

Carolyn needn't have asked. The answer was already far too obvious to her.

_And to think Mother and I worried about David mentioning it to Josette… It didn't even occur to us to worry about Barnabas mentioning it to her._

"Josette du Pres," Josette said, her voice quiet. The horror of the dream had vanished. Josette seemed to be quite distracted by the name. "Carolyn, why did you not tell me that Josette was the name of one of your ancestors?"

"I just didn't think of it," Carolyn lied. "I was never that interested in the family history."

"Can you tell me about her?"

Josette gazed at her with open curiosity and Carolyn squirmed under the gaze. Her mind was in tangles. Her thoughts twisted and turned and cluttered together until she couldn't seem to separate them. The more she tried to make sense of them, the more indistinct they became, and it caused her head to spin.

"I don't know that much about her. She came here from Martinique in seventeen ninety-five to marry into the Collins family."

Carolyn bit her lip, thinking of how much she actually did know about Josette Collins.

_Why can't I just tell her the entire truth? It isn't like it would really hurt her! They have the same name, that's all! They share no other connection. Besides, Josette's doing so much better now, she's becoming adjusted to being here. There's no reason why we should worry so much about her knowing of Josette Collins!_

_But what about the dream she just had? The dream with Jeremiah in it….if an invitation to Barnabas's party gave her such a terrifying dream, would it really be wise to tell her more about the woman whose name she shares? The way that woman died? What if it causes her to have more of these dreams?_

_Knowing of Collinwood's past wouldn't help alleviate her fears. It would feed them._

_If only Barnabas hadn't asked her to the party…she probably would never have had that dream. _

"She came here to marry the first Barnabas Collins."

Carolyn was so lost in her deliberations that Josette's statement had almost passed her by. It took her a moment before she was able to grasp what Josette had meant.

"She didn't come here to marry the first Barnabas. She came here to be the bride of Jeremiah," Carolyn corrected her. "She was Jeremiah's wife."

Josette stared at her in astonished confusion.

"Barnabas told me that she was to marry his ancestor," she said.

Carolyn 's eyes widened. "Barnabas told you…"

She couldn't get the words out. She was rendered speechless. The fact that Barnabas had told Josette something so drastically different than what was known in the family history book bewildered her. Out of all of the members of her family, he knew more about the their ancestors than anyone.

Did that make what he told Josette true? Was the book wrong? Did Josette du Pres come to Collinsport to marry Barnabas Collins, and not Jeremiah?

_If the book's wrong about that, then what else could it be wrong about? _

The possibilities didn't just keep her head spinning, they also made it hurt.

_Why do I get the feeling that's something's wrong now? Something's very wrong with all of this….with the past, with Barnabas, and even with Josette…_

"The bride of Jeremiah," Josette murmured, rising from the bed and pacing the room, shaking her head as if "bride" and "Jeremiah" didn't belong in the same sentence together.

"She was buried next to him," Carolyn said when she was able to find her voice again. "In Eagle Hill."

Josette's pacing came to a halt and she turned to Carolyn with disbelief in her eyes.

"I saw no grave next to his the day that we walked through Eagle Hill, Carolyn. There was not even a place for a grave…except for the one…the one in my dream. In my dream, Jeremiah wanted _me_ to rest beside him."

Josette gasped and her hands flew to her mouth, but it was Carolyn that said it aloud, already aware of what Josette had realized and she didn't like it at all.

"In your dream, you were Josette Collins."

* * *

"You've already told Barnabas that you would go to his party. It would hurt him terribly if you changed your mind now." 

"I realize that, Roger. It's not my intention to hurt him. It's just that it doesn't seem right to me to wear the clothes that are ancestors did. And all of this living in the past… I don't like it. I don't like it at all."

Carolyn had just finished eating breakfast in the kitchen and was about to open the study door when the voices of her mother and uncle made her pause. She let her arm drop back down to her side.

"Oh, Liz, I don't see anything wrong with Barnabas's idea. I'll admit that to some it could be considered a bit…unusual, but he's a Collins. Our family has always kept the past close to them, you know that. Besides, it's only for one evening, and I think it will be fun."

"I wish we could simply come as we are and not have to wear those clothes. I can't help the way I feel. I'm also perturbed by Barnabas's decision to invite Josette to the party and suggest that she come as Josette Collins."

"Whatever for?"

Carolyn could tell by Roger's voice that he didn't understand her mother's feelings.

"Roger, surely you've noticed the girl's resemblence to her?"

"No, not really. However, now that you mention it, from what I remember of the portrait of Josette Collins that hangs at the Old House, she does resemble her. Odd that I never noticed it before," Roger said. "I still don't see why that would trouble you, Liz. So she looks like Josette Collins and has the same name….it's a mere coincidence, that's all."

Carolyn pictured him sitting in the study with one eyebrow raised, a brandy in his hand and an amused smile on his lips.

"I never said that it wasn't a coincidence. I just don't think it's good to encourage her to get caught up in the past of Josette Collins, and I fear she may now that she's going to attend Barnabas's party. Think of how it must be for her, Roger, not having her memories. Given her situation, it wouldn't be healthy for her to develop an interest in our ancestor. I saw her last night after Barnabas left. She was enchanted by the idea of dressing as Josette Collins."

"I think you're looking far too deeply into this. It's entirely possible that she was enchanted by the idea of the costume party, but I'm more inclined to believe that it's our cousin that truly enchanted her," Roger argued, and Carolyn was certain that he was grinning. "Give me some credit, Liz. It's obvious that she and Barnabas have taken a liking to each other. Oh, they tried to hide it, but neither managed that very well. I think even Mrs. Johnson noticed it. Does that also perturb you?"

"It does. I know that Barnabas means well, but I don't think he should further any fascination she might already have for the past, especially our past."

Carolyn knocked quietly on the door and opened it part of the way to make her presence known. Roger was seated in his chair with a brandy in his hand as she had predicted. He waved her in.

"Kitten, come in here and convince your mother that she's overreacting. She's having doubts about Barnabas's party and feels for some unfathomable reason that Barnabas inviting Josette is something to be concerned over."

Carolyn stepped into the study and shook her head.

"Uncle Roger, I have my own doubts and concerns about the party," Carolyn admitted. "They're not really about wearing our ancestors' clothes, but they are about Josette."

_So many concerns…and it's more than just the party, but I can't tell them. I wouldn't know where to begin!_

"Oh? That just proves to me that this party is a splendid idea. The two of you need to get away from this house, if only for one night." He looked at Carolyn. "Your mother must be rubbing off on you, Kitten."

"It's not that, Uncle Roger, it's just that Josette had a very bad dream last night. It took her a long time to go back to sleep, and I was in bed for an hour before I fell back asleep myself! It involved one of our ancestors and that's why I'm worried about her going to the party. I thought she wouldn't want to go after having that dream, but now she wants to more than ever. She told me so this morning."

"She's simply smart enough to realize that it was only a dream and that it didn't mean anything. I've had many dreams that were nothing more than meaningless nonsense," Roger said with a shrug. "For heaven's sake, why wouldn't she want to go to the party and have some fun? She must find this house unbearably boring by now with everyone tiptoeing around her the way they do."

Carolyn frowned. She didn't think that anyone was "tiptoeing" around Josette, as Roger had called it. They were just treating her with care and trying to be mindful of her feelings. Dr. Woodard had told them that she was likely to stay in a fragile state for some time, especially if her memory showed no signs of returning. The headache, the dream, and the periods of silence Josette often lapsed into led Carolyn to believe that he was right.

"Liz, since we've already told Barnabas we would go to the party and Josette has already accepted his invitation, it's pointless for us to discuss this any further. If you're not having a good time, I'll bring you home," Roger promised.

"Very well," her mother conceded. "I suppose you're right. Despite my reservations, we will all go to the party as planned."

"Excellent. It won't harm Josette to pretend that she's someone else for a few hours. I think it will do her some good, in fact. It will distract her from her troubles for a while. We could all use a good distraction. Barnabas will make it an enjoyable evening for everyone, you'll see."

Before Carolyn could say anything in reply, a flustered Mrs. Johnson appeared in the doorway.

"Excuse the interruption, Mrs. Stoddard, but Mr. Loomis is here with the costumes. I assured him that I could take them, but he demanded that I get one of you. I must say, that boy is quite different than he used to be when he was staying here. He was very nervous just now."

_When is Willie_ not _nervous? _

"I'll go and get the costumes from him," Carolyn volunteered.

She went into the foyer and saw that Willie was leaning against the table with an anxious expression on his face. He had one hand on the back of his head and was running it roughly through his hair. An old trunk sat at his feet.

"Hello, Willie."

She startled him. He jumped and moved away from the table, all but tripping over the trunk in the process.

"Carolyn! I didn't hear ya comin'. The clothes for the party are in the trunk. Barnabas told me to tell ya that if there's any problem with them to let him know."

He seemed to be doing everything he could to avoid meeting her gaze and she didn't understand why. She didn't understand him. The old Willie Loomis would've stared defiantly into her eyes without a hint of hesitation.

_Working for Barnabas has changed him so much, but why would he stay so nervous all of the time?_

"Thanks for bringing them over. Willie, is there something the matter?"

She moved closer to him. He backed away.

"No, nothin's the matter, Carolyn." She didn't miss the way he stumbled over her name, or that she had caught him off guard with the question. "I'm just tired, that's all. I didn't get much sleep last night."

He rubbed harshly at his eyes with his hands and stood stiffly by the doors. He seemed to have his whole body on alert, waiting for whatever move she might make. She didn't know how to interpret his actions, so she simply stayed a short distance away from him and remained still.

Mentally, she made a promise to herself that she would have a talk with Barnabas about Willie, and how agitated he always acted. It wasn't any of her business and she had never cared about Willie before, but he seemed so pitiful sometimes, so unlike how he used to be. There was something wrong with him, something bothering him. There had to be.

She surprised herself by how much she wanted to know what that something was.

Carolyn turned her attention to the trunk and knelt down beside it. She raised the lid and peered at the elaborate dresses inside.

"These dresses are beautiful, but they look so uncomfortable! I can't imagine wearing these every day," she said.

She picked up a pale blue dress that had been folded on top of the others in the trunk. It wasn't until she unfolded it and held it up to her that she realized she was looking at a child's dress.

"Willie, this is a little girl's dress. Why is it in here with the clothes that we're going to wear to the party?"

Willie looked as though he might panic, and he seized the dress from her hands.

"Must've forgot to set it aside before I brought the trunk over here," he explained in his clumsy, nervous way. "I'll take it back to the Old House with me."

Carolyn didn't think that accidently leaving the dress in the trunk was anything to get upset over, but Willie was upset. She could see it in the way that he refolded the dress and held it in his hands.

"I don't think I could fit into it," she commented casually, hoping that a little bit of humor would put him more at ease.

She saw the ghost of a genuine grin on his face for a very brief second, and she wished that it hadn't disappeared so quickly.

"I'd better be headin' back now. I got some things to do before tomorrow night, and Barnabas wouldn't like it if I didn't get them done," he said. He almost sounded regretful.

Carolyn nodded in understanding. She suspected that Barnabas would want the place immaculate for his party, not that Willie didn't already have the place cleaned up. It was amazing how much he had accomplished in such a short time, and as far as she knew, Barnabas had hired no other workers to fix up the house.

She had always found that peculiar. Willie was wonderful at fixing things, but with other help, the house would have been restored to its original condition in no time.

"Will you be there at the party, Willie?"

"I don't know if Barnabas will want me there." He shrugged. "I'll be around."

For the first time, Carolyn was curious about the relationship between Barnabas and Willie. They were so different. She could think of no other two men that were as different as they were, and yet Barnabas had offered Willie a job and a place to live, and Willie had accepted both.

Were they friends?

She didn't know why, but she doubted it. She doubted it very much.

Willie's unexpected cry pulled her out of her thoughts, and she saw that he was doubled over in pain with one arm curled around his stomach and the other against the wall to keep himself on his feet.

"Willie!"

She ran to him, ignoring his protests and pathetic reassurances that he was fine and slipped her arms around his waist, afraid that he would fall without her assistance.

"Carolyn, it's nothin'! I just…" Willie stopped to take a breath and tried to get away from her, but she refused to let him. She gazed at him, frustrated at his insistence that he wasn't hurt when that was obviously not true.

"I…I fell last night when I was workin', that's all. I guess I shoulda expected it to still hurt," he explained, looking down at the floor instead of at her. "I gotta get goin'."

"Do you need me to walk back with you?"

He stared at her as though he were amazed, and she realized that he was taken aback by her offer, that he couldn't believe she would make it. That made sense, given the near violent encounters they had shared before he had changed. She remembered holding a gun on him to keep him away from her. She would never have offered to go anywhere with him then. She hadn't even wanted to be in the same room with him, he'd both angered and scared her.

But the Willie that was standing before her didn't anger or scare her, and she found that she could be in the same room with him without feeling any hatred or fear.

"You'd….you'd do that...for me?" he asked her slowly, as if he couldn't figure out why anyone would do anything for him at all.

"Sure," she answered, giving him a tentative smile. "I suppose so...if you need me to."

She suddenly and inexplicably felt as nervous as he always acted.

"You don't have to do that, Carolyn. I'll be okay," he protested. He was still looking at her in awe. "I really gotta go."

He was gone before she had a chance to say goodbye.

* * *

It was late in the afternoon when Josette came to Carolyn's room wearing her dress for the party. All traces of the nightmare she'd had was completely erased from her features, and she wore an expression that could only be described as serene. 

Carolyn had never seen her look so content.

"You look beautiful!" she exclaimed, pulling Josette across the room and placing her in front of her mirror in admiration. "I'm jealous of the way your dress fits you! Mine is going to have to be altered."

It was true. Josette's dress fit her so well that it seemed to Carolyn that the dress could have been tailored for her. It was form fitting without being too tight and was just the right length. In contrast, Carolyn's dress was a bit long and the shoulders were slightly loose on her.

Millicent Collins was apparently a bit taller and had wider shoulders than Carolyn, but the dress of Josette Collins fit her friend so perfectly that it looked like it belonged to her.

She purposefully ignored the little feeling of unease that crept upon her as carefully as a spider would scurry across her skin. She was determined not to let her thoughts about the party, or her worries about the fact that Josette was going as Josette Collins at Barnabas's request, affect her any longer. Despite her dream, Josette was looking forward to the party, and Roger was probably right that she and her mother were overreacting.

_Maybe if I keep reassuring myself of that, I'll eventually believe it._

"Thank you, Carolyn," Josette said in a warm voice, smiling at her reflection in the mirror and twirling around. "I feel so different in this dress, I cannot describe how different. I wish I could wear it all day."

"It's an exquisite dress, and mine is nice as well, but I don't think I could wear dresses like these on a regular basis." Carolyn gazed down at her dress, Millicent's dress, with a self depreciating grin. "They're so dainty and elegant. I would never get used to them."

"The dress is lovely on you." Josette stared at her. "You look rather like Millicent Collins."

"Like Millicent Collins?" Carolyn was baffled by Josette's comment. "I didn't know you had seen a photo of Millicent."

_She can't have seen a photo of Millicent. The family history book is still in the drawer here in my room…though I suppose Barnabas might have shown her. I'm sure he has the other copy of the book._

"I've not seen a photo of Millicent," Josette revealed after a moment's silence. "I've no idea what Millicent looks like. I do not know the color of her eyes or hair….I'm not sure how I even knew her name. Barnabas did not speak of her, and you…" She stopped speaking and frowned.

"I didn't tell you which family member I was going to be," Carolyn finished Josette's sentence, ignoring once again the unease that crawled through her. "You probably heard Uncle Roger or Mother talking about the party. They could've mentioned her name."

"Yes, I must have," Josette agreed quietly.

A knock at the door drew them away from the subject of Millicent Collins, and Carolyn grinned as Victoria's eyes lit up when she saw the their dresses.

"Vicki! Josette and I were just trying on our costumes for the party. Care to tell us what you think? Do we pass for eighteenth century ladies?"

"You most certainly do! You both look wonderful! If I didn't know any better I would say that the two of you had stepped right out of the past!"

Carolyn laughed. "Thanks, Vicki."

Victoria sighed. "I wish I could go to the party, but I promised Burke he could take me into Bangor for the evening tomorrow night. He's going away on business the very next day and I won't seem him for a week or more," she said. "I'm not a Collins, anyway, so it doesn't really matter."

Carolyn watched as Victoria bowed her head, knowing how much Victoria longed for a family. She wished that she could make her friend see that she was already thought of as a member of the Collins family.

"You should be. Vicki, if anyone deserves to be a Collins, it's you. If you weren't spending the evening with Burke, I'm sure Barnabas would've wanted you there with the rest of us," Carolyn assured her.

"I'm not a Collins, and he invited me," Josette pointed out softly. She smiled as well, but her smile wavered. She turned her gaze fleetingly to the mirror and then returned it to Carolyn and Victoria.

"I'm confident that you'll have a fabulous evening in Bangor with Burke. He'll have something special planned for you," Carolyn said.

"I know." Victoria's face flushed. "I suppose I should tell you, you'll be hearing about it very soon."

"Oh? The innocent governess has something to confess, has she?" Carolyn teased Victoria playfully, watching her flush even further.

Josette appeared amused. Carolyn thought that she was probably relieved that she wasn't on the receiving end of her teasing for a change.

"Burke asked me to marry him, and I said yes," Victoria announced, her face shining with happiness. Carolyn couldn't remember the last time she saw her look so happy.

"I knew it!" Carolyn cried, satisfied that what she had suspected turned out to be true. "That was the reason for the little 'celebration' at the Blue Whale, wasn't it?"

"Well, I hadn't given him my answer then. He gave me time to think. I told him that my answer was yes just last night. I was so surprised that he wanted to marry me. I've never really thought about it. I wasn't sure that I could make such an important decision, but then I realized that I love Burke and that I do want to marry him."

"I'm happy for you, and for Burke." Carolyn hugged her. "Congratulations, Vicki."

Josette, who had been quiet through most of their exchange, went over to Victoria and congratulated her as well, though it seemed to Carolyn that the talk of marriage had dulled her earlier enthusiasm about their dresses and the party.

"Well, I had better let the two of you change. Mrs. Stoddard said that dinner would be ready soon. I'm going to go see how David's doing with the essay that I told him to write."

Victoria smiled at them as she left the room, and Josette looked at Carolyn.

"When do you think you will marry?"

Carolyn reached for something to change into for dinner with one hand and held Millicent's dress up with the other so that it wouldn't drag the floor as she walked. She pondered Josette's question carefully before deciding on her answer.

"I'm not sure that I ever will. What Burke and Victoria have is very rare. I don't think that I'll ever find something like it."

* * *

Dinner had been pleasant because of Victoria's news, though Carolyn knew that her uncle wasn't at all pleased about Victoria marrying Burke. Any event that could possibly bring Burke Devlin closer to the family was considered to be, in Roger's opinion, an utterly disastrous affair. Considering their history, she supposed that it would be enough if he could at least be civil to Burke. 

They would certainly never be friends.

Her mother's glares had kept him in line as she and Victoria had spoken happily about her engagement, but from the way that he had stabbed his fork furiously into his food, it was obvious that he would be sorely tempted to be the one who objects on the day of their wedding on the grounds of detesting the groom.

Carolyn changed into her nightgown and sat down in front of her vanity. As she started to brush her hair, she noticed that David was lingering in the hall outside of her door. He looked to be debating on whether or not to come in and see her.

"David, are you going to stand there in the hallway all night?"

"How did you know I was there?" David asked. He came into her room and dropped onto her bed.

"I saw you in the mirror," she said. She turned around to get a better look at him. "There's something on your mind. What is it?"

"I don't know if I should tell you." David shrugged and lowered his head. "I don't know if you'll believe me."

"Well, why don't you tell me, and then you can find out?"

"I was on the landing when you were talking with Willie in the foyer today. Vicki said I could go outside to play and I was going to, but then I saw you with the girl's dress that you pulled out of the trunk and…. Oh, I don't know why I'm telling you. You won't think it means anything."

Carolyn chose not to scold David for watching her with Willie. She couldn't very well reprimand him when she had listened in on her mother and Roger in the study just hours before that.

She wondered what it was about her family that compelled them all to listen in on private conversations and spy on each other's social interactions.

"What about the dress, David?"

"The dress looked like something that Sarah would wear!" David blurted out. "It wasn't that different than the one she wears every time I see her. It made me think of her when I saw it."

Carolyn's eyebrows raised in surprise. It occurred to her that she hadn't asked David much about Sarah, at least not when it came to Sarah's appearance. She had just assumed that the little girl looked like every other small child in town.

"She wears a dress like the blue one that was in the trunk?"

"All the time," David said. "It's white and very old fashioned. She wears a bonnet with it. It looks like something that could be worn to the costume party that Cousin Barnabas is having. I've never seen her in anything else."

"She must have other clothes, David..."

A thought flew into her head, a thought so ridiculous that she didn't know why she was indulging it. She got up and opened the drawer that contained the family history book and removed it from beneath a green scarf.

"David, I want to show you something." She sat down beside him and flipped through the book's pages, searching for the one that she wanted David to see.

"It's the family history. I've seen it before," David said with a careless shrug. He gazed up at her. "Why do you have it here in your room?"

"Nevermind that. I want you to look at this picture."

She moved the book closer to him and he stared down at the portrait of Sarah Collins, the little sister of the original Barnabas. His reaction to the picture astonished her, and yet, somehow, it didn't. His eyes became as round as the dinner plates that Mrs. Johnson always complained about having to clean, and he gasped loudly and snatched the book from her hands.

"That's Sarah!" he cried, pointing at the picture on the page. "I can't believe that I've never noticed it before! That's her, Carolyn!"

"David, if that's Sarah, if that's the girl that you play with, then that means…"

She couldn't say it. She could barely even think it.

_David could've glanced at the picture of Sarah once while he was looking at the book and then conjured her up in his mind, not knowing that he did it…but he seemed so shocked when I showed him Sarah's picture… It was like he had never seen it before._

_And Josette thought she saw a little girl at the Old House last night! That little girl could've been Sarah, and that...that would mean that it isn't all in David's head._

"She always appears and disappears so quickly, and she always knows when I'm looking for her! Everything makes sense now," David declared. "Sarah's a ghost!"

Carolyn reached for the book and he gave it to her. She studied Sarah Collins carefully. The white lace bonnet and dress that she was wearing matched David's description of his friend's clothes.

_Could David be right? Is she the ghost of Sarah Collins? _

_Why does it seem that the past has suddenly trapped us all inside of it?_

_What's happening in this house...?_


	17. Expectations

A/N - I am so sorry for the long delay. The holidays kept me busy and I wanted to take a bit of time with this one. I hope everyone enjoys it and that it was worth the wait. There are a couple of lines of foreshadowing in this chapter that I didn't even think about until I reread it. Major events occur in the next few chapters. :) Thank you so much for the continuing reviews! I really appreciate it!

* * *

**Chapter 16: _Expectations_**

As soon as Frank joined Burke for an afternoon drink at the Blue Whale, he knew something had happened. His friend was sitting at one of the tables wearing a grim expression.

"Another girl was attacked last night," he announced.

Frank ordered himself a drink and waited until the bartender left their table before he turned to Burke and asked his question.

"Where did it happen?"

"On the docks," Burke said. "Luckily someone was nearby and heard her scream. They found her unconscious and took her to the hospital. The police were able to question her early this morning, but she didn't get a good look at her attacker. She just described him as a 'dark figure'. George didn't know what to make of it. I think he was close to believing that the attacks were over since nothing had happened for several days." Burke frowned at Frank. "According to Dr. Woodard, the girl had lost a significant amount of blood. There were two marks on her neck."

"Like Maggie Evans." Frank leaned forward in his chair. "Surely the police will continue their investigation into what happened to her, given the circumstances. It should be plain for them to see that the man responsible for Evans's death is still in Collinsport. The girl in the hospital should be reason enough for the case to remain open."

"It is, but I'm beginning to doubt that the police will be able to find this maniac."

"I can't make sense of this," Frank said with a grimace. "I've never seen or heard of anything like these attacks, let alone what happened to Maggie Evans. It's over my head, Burke."

"The attack on that girl isn't the only thing I was thinking about while I as waiting for you." Burke finished his drink and set it back down on the table. "I've heard from a couple of my people and they still have yet to uncover anything that might give us a clue as to who that girl is that's staying up at Collinwood. Not a single piece of information has been found. There's nothing out there, Frank. Nothing out there about that girl at all."

Frank shook his head at that. He knew Burke had the best men possible for the job and that if anyone could dig something up it would be them.

"I've told them to keep searching, but they're getting frustrated. I think they believe that I'm wasting my time and theirs. I hope you don't mind, but I left them your number at the inn so they can contact you if they need to while I'm away."

"I don't mind. I'd almost forgotten about your trip. I assume you're planning to spend the evening with Vicki?"

At the mere mention of Victoria, Burke instantly relaxed and grinned.

"I'm taking her into Bangor. She gave me her answer, Frank. Her answer was yes."

Frank didn't have to ask what his friend meant. He grinned as well and clapped Burke on the back.

"Congratulations, Burke! I know how much she means to you."

"I know you hadn't planned to stay in Collinsport that long, but I would like you to be at the wedding. We haven't set a date yet, but I don't think it will be too long after I get back. Will you stay?"

Frank nodded, still grinning. "Of course I'll stay, I wouldn't miss the day that Burke Devlin got married."

"Good, because I'm in need of a best man."

Frank was stunned. He and Burke had been friends for a few years, but he hadn't expected Burke to want him to be the best man at his wedding.

"I don't know what to say except yes," Frank said. "I'll be your best man, if you're certain that you don't want to give the pleasure to Roger, that is."

Burke's expression turned to one of disgust, and Frank winked at him, causing both men to laugh.

"I just thought of something," Burke said suddenly, after they had both collected themselves. "You remember the dress that Josette was wearing when we found her, how strange it looked?"

"Yes, of course I remember. We had decided that it seemed old fashioned."

"Maybe we should go up to Collinwood and talk to Josette, see if she'll show us the dress."

Frank didn't protest. He would hardly mind seeing her again, but he didn't understand why Burke wanted to look at the dress. What could clue could it possibly provide?

"The dress looks old fashioned, and if it really is, then it's possible that it could've been handmade. If that's the case, perhaps there will be a tag of some kind, something that identifies the maker, or even the owner," Burke explained.

"She would've seen it, Burke. She would've noticed it the day that we found her."

"Not necessarily," Burke said. "Think about it. She wouldn't have any reason to wear that dress again. Vicki told me that Carolyn had taken her shopping for clothes, and that dress isn't exactly something that a woman wears regularly. It's possible she put it away and hasn't spent too much time looking at it."

"This little town's teaching me that anything's possible," Frank admitted thoughtfully. "It wouldn't hurt to look. I'll go up there and talk to her tonight. You just concentrate on celebrating with Vicki. "

"I'm going to pick her up in a couple of hours. The Collins family may not be at Collinwood this evening when you go up there. Vicki told me that Barnabas Collins invited them to a costume party at the Old House in honor of its restoration. He practically lives for the past. He hasn't even put electricity into the place. She calls him a 'charming gentlemen'. I think she wanted to go to the party."

"He sounds eccentric," Frank said. "Just make sure that Vicki enjoys her evening with you, and then she'll forget all about his party."

"I will. Maybe by the time I get back, the police will have found the one that's behind these attacks and I won't have to go after him myself. Just do me a favor, Frank. Be careful. I used to think this place was relatively safe with the exception of the Collins family's influence here, and now I'm not so sure."

* * *

Carolyn was grateful that the wind had died down as the afternoon wore on. She had styled her hair for the costume party and she didn't want it to come undone. It was pinned up in small curls and it had taken her what seemed like ages to get those curls to stay in place. Her hair just wasn't meant for them. Victoria had aided her in altering her dress and was currently helping Josette with her hair. Carolyn knew that Victoria would have a much easier time with Josette's hair. Carolyn had been ready to give up on her own, but Josette's long hair was perfect for the style of the eighteenth century. 

She followed the path through Eagle Hill that she and Josette had taken on the day they had walked through the cemetery, retracing their steps and searching for the grave of Jeremiah Collins.

Ever since Josette had told her that Jeremiah's grave stood alone, she knew that she would eventually go to Eagle Hill to see for herself that the grave of Josette Collins was nowhere to be found.

Caught between her friend's dream and David's claim that Sarah was a ghost, Carolyn was more confused than she could ever remember being, and more certain that something was happening, something that had to do with the past. She'd asked David to take her with him the next time he went to see Sarah, but he'd told her that Sarah was unlikely to appear to him while she was with him. David had promised to talk to Sarah and to persuade her to meet Carolyn.

Only days ago she would have dismissed David's claim about Sarah as a result of his overactive imagination, but with Josette dreaming of Jeremiah Collins and looking so much like Josette Collins, she wasn't able to brush it off so easily now. She couldn't. There were too many coincidences, too many moments when she questioned herself, her family…and her cousin.

Perhaps her cousin most of all.

Before Barnabas had arrived from England, Carolyn had known next to nothing about the family's history except for a few general pieces of information that everyone believed to be fact. Of course, David had always been fascinated by ghosts and his favorite one had been Josette Collins. He had always loved looking at her portrait and imagining that she could communicate with him, that she was a ghost that haunted the Old House.

_Had he imagined it?_

It just seemed to Carolyn that Barnabas had only brought the past closer to them. His devotion to it, his passion for it, seemed to swallow them all up.

When she had first seen him, it had astonished her that he looked so much like the first Barnabas Collins that was depicted in the portrait, but she'd quickly assumed that it was possible for him to look identical to the man. He was his direct descendent, after all.

It was one thing for her to cast aside Barnabas's resemblance to his ancestor and another to cast aside Josette's resemblance to Josette Collins. She was found below Widows' Hill, where Josette Collins had killed herself, and she dreamed of herself as Josette Collins with Jeremiah calling to her from beyond the grave.

It made her think of Barnabas and how much he knew about the past. He'd said that he had been raised on family journals and stories, but the way that he described things, the tale of Josette Collins that he'd shared with her…it was too descriptive, so much so that it made him seem obsessive.

He seemed obsessed with a time long gone, and it had begun to bother her.

When she added David's friend, the mysterious little Sarah, to Barnabas and Josette, it all led her back to the past.

She wished that she could tell her mother about her feelings. She thought that her mother would understand. She also had misgivings about the party and had noticed that the past appeared to be influencing the present, at least in small ways. However, Carolyn didn't think that her mother had noticed all that she had in the last few days, and she couldn't bring herself to admit to anyone that she was starting to believe that Sarah was a ghost.

_If I keep this up, what will come next? Maybe one day I'll believe that Josette is actually Josette Collins, and that she was somehow brought back from the dead…_

She shook her head to clear it of such a ridiculous thought and succeeded in banishing it from her mind, but as she did, a tiny shard of doubt lodged itself in place of it.

_And Sarah being a ghost isn't a ridiculous thought?_

When she reached Jeremiah's grave, she froze and stared beside it at something that should have been there, but was not. Her friend had been right. There was no grave belonging to Josette Collins next to the grave of her husband.

_It was here! It had to be! Where else would they have buried her?_

"What are you doing here? You should not be here."

Carolyn's heart skipped a beat and she spun to find the old caretaker looking at her with watchful eyes. He placed his withered hands on a battered headstone to steady himself as he approached her.

"I apologize for startling you, but you should leave here. The dead must not be disturbed," he said. His voice shook terribly. She couldn't tell if it was because of fear or the passage of time.

She ignored his warnings. She'd had very little contact with him over the years, but her mother had told her about him once and explained to her that he was very old and said strange things. Any other time, she would have disregarded those strange things and been on her way, but she wanted to find out where Josette Collins was buried and he was the only there to help her.

"Can you tell me where Josette Collins's grave is?"

He gazed at her oddly and gestured to Jeremiah's headstone.

"She's buried here, next to Jeremiah Collins. They were married, but their marriage ended in tragedy. You see, Josette Collins took her own life on Widows' Hill, not far-"

"But there is no grave here," Carolyn interrupted, becoming impatient. She didn't need to hear the story of Josette Collins again.

She had come to know it very well in a very short time.

"I've been caretaker here for years. Josette Collins's grave has always been here next to her husband's. I've taken care of these graves for-" He stopped speaking, and Carolyn knew that he'd finally noticed what she had earlier.

"I've taken care of these graves for years," he stammered, pointing with a trembling finger to the air next to Jeremiah's grave. "Josette Collins was buried here next to her husband. It is gone….gone. Her grave is gone." His eyes bore into Carolyn's and he put his hand on her arm. "It is a sign. A sign that something evil is lurking here amongst the dead. The poor, restless dead. You must leave. You must leave now and not return here. Leave. Leave the dead before it comes for you."

She freed her arm from his grasp and backed away, watching him as she did so. He didn't take his eyes off of her and he kept repeating that the dead could not be disturbed.

Her heart pounded as she hurried out of the cemetery and headed in the direction of Collinwood.

She didn't look back.

* * *

Everything had to be perfect. 

That was what Josette kept thinking to herself as she smoothed the wrinkles from her dress and wrapped her finger gently around a stray curl of her hair.

Victoria had helped her with her hair. She had spent quite a bit of time fixing it the way Josette had wanted it and she patiently made adjustments until Josette was satisfied. Josette had apologized to her for being so meticulous, but Victoria had just smiled at her.

"I understand how it is to want everything to be perfect," Victoria had assured her. "Normally, I'm not one for spending so much time getting ready, but it took me all morning to decide what to wear to Bangor this evening and what make-up I should put on. I wanted to look nice for Burke."

Josette had thought that Victoria had accomplished that with the pale blue dress that she'd had on when she left for the evening. Victoria's clothes often seemed rather plain to her, but even though the blue dress had been simple, it had been lovely.

Still, Josette infinitely preferred the flowing gown that adorned her own figure over the shorter dress of Victoria's. Ever since she had first put it on, she'd had the strong sensation that she was meant to wear it, as well as others like it. The gown felt right on her body, as though it belonged to her and not to the woman named Josette du Pres.

The woman that she had portrayed in her dream.

_I must not think of the dream tonight…_

She attempted to cast the memory of it away, let it drift from her the way a ship would as it left the land and sought the horizon, but it washed onto the shore, refusing to be forgotten.

The dream, a memory she did not want, would continue to haunt her.

The irony made her sigh.

_Despite the dream, I'm still attending the costume party with the Collins family… Should I be? Last night, I was prepared to stay here. I had thought that I should stay here. But I want to go. More than that, I feel I _must _go. _

_And Barnabas wants me there…_

An image of Barnabas rose to the surface of her mind, and as it did, she moved in front of her mirror and studied her reflection very carefully. Most of her hair was pinned in a crown at the back of her head, but several loose strands fell down her back and a couple of curls framed her face. She frowned at the errant curl that she had been playing with and eased it back into place.

_Everything must be perfect… _I _must be perfect._

She turned from the mirror and sifted through the items on the vanity until she found what she was searching for. She picked up the small bottle of perfume that she had gotten in the city and lightly applied the fragrance to her skin.

The scent was that of Jasmine, and it was very soothing to her.

Glancing at the clock, she realized that it was nearly time for the family to leave. After giving herself one last critical look in the mirror, she left her room with the intention to wait in the drawing room until the others were ready to leave.

"Josette!"

David's voice caught her completely by surprise. He was standing in the doorway of his room, watching her as though he expected her to disappear before his eyes.

"David," Josette said softly. "Is there something wrong?"

"I don't want you to go to Cousin Barnabas's party! Please don't go!" he begged, running to her and reaching for her hand.

"Why do you not want me to go?"

"He'll take you away from me again! I know he will! He did it before at the Old House when he took down your portrait, and he'll do it again! I don't want him to take you away!"

"David--"

Josette was just able to get his name past her lips when he ran back into his room and closed the door. For a moment, she simply stared in confusion at the barrier he had placed between them. His words echoed in her head as she tried to comprehend them.

She was about to go to David when she heard footsteps on the stairs and saw Carolyn coming towards her dressed in the gown that she and Victoria had altered.

"Uncle Roger wanted me to ask you if you're ready to go. He and Mother are downstairs. I think he wants to leave now before Mother changes her mind about going. She's still having doubts," Carolyn said with a subdued smile.

She looked at David's closed door, then nodded to Carolyn, promising herself that she would speak with David after the party and find out why he was so upset.

She followed Carolyn onto the landing and down the stairs, suddenly very anxious to go to the Old House. Her doubts from the dream had diminished, and David's peculiar outburst was forgotten completely.

Her heart danced at the thought of Barnabas waiting for her at Old House, wearing the same clothes as the man in the foyer portrait. She was almost breathless with anticipation, and she blushed at her body's behavior.

Carolyn led her into the drawing room. Elizabeth and Roger were there, but they were not alone.

Frank Hamilton was standing with them.

"Why, you make a magnificent Josette Collins," Roger declared when he saw her. "I'm sure Barnabas will agree."

"Josette, Mr. Hamilton wishes to speak with you. Since we felt it best to leave now and not make Barnabas wait, he offered to take you to the Old House himself once the two of you are finished talking," Elizabeth said.

Josette gazed at Frank and tried to hide her apprehension. She wanted to go with the Collins family to the Old House. It was only right to accompany them and not be taken there on the arm of an almost stranger, someone who was not one of the family. What would Barnabas think if he saw her being escorted to his home by a man she hardly knew?

_How can I think that? I met Frank Hamilton before I met Barnabas!_

_That's not true. No…it is true, and yet…_

"Honestly, I don't see why he can't wait until tomorrow to tell Josette whatever it is he needs to tell her. She's dressed and ready to go to the party, and Barnabas is expecting her to be with us when we arrive at the Old House," Roger argued, and Josette saw him send a glare in Frank's direction.

She would have been confused by Roger's rather rude remarks if Carolyn had not mentioned briefly to her that Roger disliked Burke Devlin. She supposed that in Roger's eyes, a friend of Burke Devlin's was no friend of his own.

"That's enough, Roger," Elizabeth said, a warning in her voice that reached Josette's ears very clearly. "I'm sure that Mr. Hamilton's reason for wanting to speak with her is a good one. Now, we really should be going. I don't want Barnabas to become concerned." With that settled, she smiled at Josette. "Don't worry. I'm sure Barnabas won't mind if you are a bit late."

Josette nodded, realizing that she had to stay. The family would not understand if she were to insist on leaving with them and Frank would be affronted.

Josette watched with longing as the others left, then turned to face Frank. Her thoughts, however, were not on Frank, but on Barnabas.

She was certain that Elizabeth was wrong. Somehow, she sensed that he would be displeased by her decision to allow Frank to be the one to take her to the Old House.

* * *

The reflection in the oval shaped gold mirror in Josette's room gave no indication that there was someone looking into it. The bed behind him was clearly visible, with its decorative pillows and red velvet cover. Once, he would have stared into the mirror and seen himself in front of the bed, his form obscuring most of it from his view. 

Barnabas turned his back on the vanity's mirror. It was the last mirror left in the house, and if not for Josette, he would have gladly rid himself of its taunting presence, for what good was a mirror when he could not see himself in it?

He adjusted his black cravat for the third time since he had donned his clothes for the evening's party. The dark red vest, black boots and tail coat felt heavy in comparison to the modern suits he had taken to wearing, but the weight was a familiar one and it made him long for his own time.

There were moments, usually upon waking in the coffin at dusk, when he wondered if he would ever truly be comfortable in this time.

_Josette is in this time now, and I will have her. I will no longer be alone. We will have each other._

He pulled back the drapes from one window and stared into the night. His new family would be arriving soon and she would be with them.

_Is this the night that she will remember? Is this the night when she will embrace me as she did then, when she said that she was willing to walk beside me on the dark path that Angelique had created for me? Or is this the night when she will gaze at me with terror in her eyes as she did on Widows' Hill, when she chose to die rather than take that path?_

"Josette, do not disappoint me," he murmured, gazing up at the portrait. The desperation in his voice could not be concealed, no matter how much effort he put forth to hide it.

With his heightened senses, he could hear Willie moving about down in the drawing room, no doubt finishing the final preparations for the party.

Willie had been acting in odd fashion for the past three nights, and Barnabas had noticed his servant staring at him with searching eyes, studying him.

He knew that it was because of the coffin in the cellar, and the shredded lining that he had ordered Willie to replace. Barnabas had not forgotten that evening. He remembered it very clearly.

Much too clearly.

Each night since then he had risen from his coffin cautiously, preparing himself for the possibility that the frightening occurrence could happen again. Each night he had been able to raise the lid of the coffin without incident, but he could not accept that he had somehow _imagined_ being trapped in his coffin and unable to free himself.

And yet….

He was not foolish enough to presume that he was not prone to madness. After being cursed as a creature that could live only during the night and entombed for nearly two centuries in his family's mausoleum, he privately accepted that madness had not only touched him, but had burrowed deep within his soul. For one hundred and seventy-two years it had preyed on the edge of his mind while he had been chained in the coffin and he'd fought it away, kept it from devouring his thoughts and memories.

It had eventually fixed its hungry eyes upon his heart….

_I must not think of that tonight. I must not let it ruin my plans._

Barnabas walked over to the bed and let his fingers glide over one of the pillows that rested against the headboard. The image of Josette on the bed with her hair spread out over the pillow dispelled his lingering memories of being confined in the coffin.

There was something blue partially hidden from sight underneath the second pillow, and Barnabas reached down, astonished, as he realized that it was a dress.

Sarah's dress.

Carefully, reverently, he gathered it into his hands and absently smoothed the delicate fabric, and remembered a time when Sarah had not been afraid to come to him. A time when she had asked him happily if he liked her new blue dress.

The memories were overwhelming him. He hastily refolded the dress and set it on the table near the fireplace. Below, he could hear the sound of Willie's voice, followed by the voices of his family. With the knowledge that Josette was waiting for him downstairs, he strode across the room and over to the door.

Barnabas immediately sensed that something was amiss, and even if he had not, the nervous, fearful expression on Willie's face as he appeared on the landing would have made it very clear.

"They're here, Barnabas. I came up to let ya know," Willie said.

"I am aware of that." He narrowed his eyes at Willie and added calmly, "Is there something else you wish to tell me?"

"She...she ain't here. Roger said that she's still at Collinwood talkin' with somebody. He said that she's…she's with…." Willie fell silent, and Barnabas barely resisted the urge to throttle him, not only for his inability communicate properly, but also for his despicable habit of speaking incorrectly.

"Who did Roger say that she was with, Willie?" The anger in his voice made Willie flinch, but it was nothing like the rage that burned within him at the thought of Josette at Collinwood alone with another man.

"It was Burke Devlin's friend. The one that found her. Fr- Frank Hamilton."

Frank Hamilton. A name, a _man_, that he had promptly dismissed as insignificant, had prevented Josette from coming to him.

"What…what are ya gonna do, Barnabas?"

_I am going to ensure that Frank Hamilton will never have another moment of Josette's time._

"I am going to greet my guests for the evening."

He swept past Willie and descended the stairs, pausing for a moment on the last step when his family came into view. Elizabeth looked so much like his mother that it pained him. The scene in the drawing room would have been perfect. A perfect vision that he would wish to capture in a portrait.

But it would never be perfect without Josette.

_Josette, my darling, you will be with me tonight, if I have to go to Collinwood and bring you here myself…

* * *

_

Frank knew that Josette was waiting for him to say something, but he could only stare at her in that gown.

He had been impressed by the gown that Elizabeth Stoddard had been wearing, and had complimented her when Roger Collins had reluctantly let him inside. She'd given him a polite but formal 'thank you' in return, and Roger informed him in an icy tone that they were on their way to their cousin's costume party and had no time for visitors.

No doubt someone had told Roger that Frank was a friend of Burke's.

After promising that he would drive Josette over to the Old House once they were finished with their conversation, Mrs. Stoddard seemed pacified and Roger had ignored him until Josette had come into the drawing room with Carolyn.

The way she looked in that gown… It reminded him of the one she had been wearing on the day that he and Burke had found her on the beach. It was white and looked very similar, only it was far more extravagant. He wondered where the Collins family had gotten such detailed clothes. He had been able to tell as soon as he'd seen them that they were authentic and not poorly designed costumes, and he guessed that they were fashions of the late eighteenth century.

The gown that Josette was wearing was made of satin. It shimmered in the dim lighting of the drawing room, and he found himself temporarily mesmerized by it. Like Elizabeth Stoddard's gown, its appearance indicated that it had been created for a lady of means and not a mere commoner.

"You look amazing," he told her.

"Thank you," she said, in her usual, quiet way.

He had hoped that the night at the Blue Whale would have made her more comfortable with him, but his hopes were dashed. She still reacted to him in the same manner that she had before then and still seemed unsure of how to interact with him. No matter how disarming he tried to be, he suspected that she would still keep her distance.

Yet there was something different about her demeanor.

She carried herself with a poise that had previously been absent. She held her head higher, and she seemed to meet his gaze more readily than before.

She was on the opposite side of the room, looking at him patiently, but for a moment, he thought he saw a flash of irritation flutter over her features.

"Burke and I were talking this afternoon and he brought up something that I think might help us find out who you are," he said finally, then cursed himself for using those words. If it turned out to be a dead end, he would have gotten her hopes up for nothing. Quickly, he added, "It probably wasn't wise of me to say that. There's only a chance, and it may not add up to anything."

He expected her eyes to widen and light up at the prospect of discovering her identity. He expected her to hurry over to him and beg him to tell her what he meant.

She did none of those things. Instead, she glanced out into the foyer as if someone of the utmost importance waited for her there.

"Josette?"

"I'm very sorry. I suppose I'm distracted tonight," she said. She slowly turned to him again. "What is it that you think may help?"

He knew that there was something more than distraction that was causing her behavior, but he let it go.

"Do you still have the dress that you were wearing when we found you?"

"Yes, it's in my room," she said with a frown.

"Burke thought that the dress could be marked because it looked to be handmade. Did you notice if it was labeled or if there was a name on it? Perhaps the name of the maker?"

"No, there is no name."

Frank's eyebrows furrowed as she answered him. The subject of the dress was not a pleasant one for her. He could tell that she was doing everything that she could to hide her feelings from him, but her unease was evident, and it puzzled him.

"Then I'm afraid I've wasted your time." Frank sighed. He didn't want to give up so easily, but he knew that he'd reached the dead end that he had feared. "I figured it was a long shot, but we thought it was worth a try. I'm sorry for keeping you from the party."

As soon as he mentioned the party, it was as if Josette's unease had never existed.

"Will you take me to the Old House now?"

With her gentle voice, it should have only sounded like a request.

Why did it sound more to Frank like a demand?

The realization struck him so suddenly that he felt as though he had been slapped in the face. _The party. _That was the reason behind her distraction, and probably the reason she'd stared into the foyer. She had been looking at the doors. She wanted to go to the party and he had kept her from doing so.

It surprised him that she had grown so close to the people at Collinwood that she would attend what Burke had described as an event held exclusively for the family.

And why had Barnabas Collins invited her?

He tried on the way to the Old House to engage her in conversation, but only succeeded in talking to himself. She remained silent as she sat stiffly in the passenger seat of the car and stared straight ahead. He saw her glance occasionally at his face and then at his hands on the steering wheel.

_Why do I get the impression that she doesn't like being in the car with me? Doesn't she trust me? She should know I would never do anything to hurt her!_

When he stopped in front of the Old House and opened her door for her, she was noticeably relieved to be able to get out of the car. He offered her his hand and she paused for a moment before giving him her own.

He gazed up at the impressive structure in front of them and let out a low whistle of appreciation. He shrugged at Josette's questioning look.

"I've always had a bit of an interest in older homes," he explained with a grin.

The house wasn't nearly as big as Collinwood, but at one time, it had likely been just as grand. He had seen many old homes in his day, but none of them had made the impression on him that the Old House did as he studied it.

It was a shame that Barnabas Collins was such a private man. Frank would have enjoyed exploring the house and the secrets that were behind its walls.

"Well, we'd better get you inside," he said, turning to Josette.

She was no longer looking at him. Her attention was focused on one of the candlelit windows to the left of the doors. He could make out the form of someone standing in front of the curtains.

He held out his arm and she seemed to link her own with his on instinct. She didn't even glance at him as they walked up the portico steps together. He sorely suspected that she had forgotten that he was beside her.

He was not wrong in his assessment that she had been looking forward to the party, but when one of the doors opened before he'd had the chance to knock and revealed behind it a tall, dark haired man, he was forced to realize that it had not been the idea of the party alone that delighted her.

The way she smiled at Barnabas Collins made that all too obvious.

Collins held his hand out to Josette, who let go of Frank's arm and placed her hand in his without a second's hesitation. He then fixed Frank with a sharp stare and addressed him in a low voice filled with an emotion that Frank wasn't sure if he wanted to identify.

An emotion that chilled him to the core.

"Thank you, Mr. Hamilton, for bringing Miss Josette to me this evening. I am most grateful."

The possessive way Collins referred to Josette left a bad taste in Frank's mouth, but he never received a chance to reply. The door had shut softly in his face faster then he could even blink, let alone speak.

_So much for the charming gentleman…_


	18. A Moment Out of the Past

A/N- I'm fortunate I have a thick head of hair, due to the many times I've ripped it out over this chapter and how long it has taken me to get it out! I'm so very, very sorry! This is only half of the original chapter. I decided to break it into two because the second half is only partly finished. I've also done some revising on previous chapters - typos/repetitive things, nothing too noteworthy. I'm just a bit of a perfectionist. :sheepish grin:. This chapter contains some dialogue from the costume party episode of the show which of course I can't take credit for! Minor note - I've combined the contradictory history of the Collins family (pre1795 and post1795). It will be brought up in the next chapter. Thank you for sticking with me! Please review!

* * *

**Chapter 17: _A Moment Out of the Past_**

David listened to Mrs. Johnson's footsteps fade as she went back downstairs to finish her work for the night. Since Vicki was out with Burke and everyone else was at his cousin's party, she had come to his room to check on him.

He had wanted so badly for Josette not to go the party with his family, but she'd gone anyway. She hadn't listened to him. She hadn't understood his fears.

He wished her memory would come back. He wished that she would remember him, remember how he used to go to the Old House to see her.

Aunt Elizabeth would be very displeased with him if she knew what he wished for. She would say that he was mistaken. She would say that Josette wasn't Josette Collins, that it was impossible for her to be, but David knew he was right.

Somehow, she _was_ Josette Collins, and she was alive again. He didn't know how she was able to come back, and it didn't matter to him. All he wanted was for her to remember so that things could be like they used to before Barnabas moved into the Old House.

His cousin had become interested in her. David had known that since the night that he'd found him waiting downstairs to meet her. Had Barnabas talked to Josette when she was a ghost? Had she appeared to Barnabas like she'd appeared to him? Was that why Barnabas had been so eager to see her?

David rolled onto his back. He wasn't tired. He had too much on his mind to be tired. He had too many questions and no answers.

_I just know Sarah could answer my questions, if only she were here. She knows everything._

_But she probably wouldn't tell me. She didn't even tell me that she was a ghost! She let me think she was just some strange kid who lived in town._

"Where are you, Sarah?" he muttered.

"Right here, David."

David threw the bedcovers away from him and sat up at her unexpected reply. She emerged from a darkened corner of his room and came over to him with a smile on her face. She wasn't wearing the white dress she usually had on, but a light blue one instead. It had more ruffles and lace. Her bonnet was gone. He was so used to seeing her with it that she looked different without it. A little older, maybe.

"Sarah! Why didn't you tell me you were a ghost?"

"I heard you call me," she said, still smiling.

"All this time I was so confused, and now it all makes sense!" he said excitedly, not bothered that she didn't answer him. He had other questions for her that were more important. "Sarah, there are so many things I want to ask you. Will you tell me if I ask you?"

"I can try. What do you want to ask me?" She sat down beside him on the bed, and he saw that she had her flute with her.

"Remember when I told you that I wanted you to meet Josette?" When Sarah nodded her head, he continued, "You said you knew someone named Josette a long time ago. You were talking about Josette Collins. I know you were. The woman that's staying here is Josette Collins! I'm sure of it! Do you know why she came back?"

"I know why, but I can't tell you that, David."

David frowned. "Why not?"

"I just can't."

"Can you at least tell me that she _is_ Josette Collins?" he pressed, not ready to give up. He wanted to hear from Sarah that he was right about Josette.

"You don't need me to tell you. You already know."

"I knew it!" David grinned happily. "I just have one more question. It's about my cousin who lives in the Old House. Do you know anything about him, Sarah?"

"I don't know what you mean, David."

Her eyebrows knitted together and she turned her head in a way that made it look as though she had heard something, which was odd because he hadn't heard anything at all.

"I'm sorry, David. I have to go." She got to her feet.

"You just don't want to answer my question," David said glumly.

"I don't want to go, I just have to. They need me," Sarah said. "Someone is going to try to return tonight, David. Someone bad. It mustn't happen."

"Sarah, who are you - Wait a minute, Sarah! Sarah!"

With a scowl, he pulled the blankets back over him, and felt something hard bump up against his ankle. He reached down to the foot of the bed and picked up Sarah's flute. He put it on his nightstand and stared at it.

_Someone bad? What did she mean? Who could she be talking about?

* * *

_

"It's a shame that we had no one to come as Jeremiah Collins," Roger remarked, nodding towards Josette from his place the by the fire. "After all, it would be fitting for Jeremiah be here with his wife."

Josette glanced down at her hands. She was secretly relieved that no one was playing the role of Jeremiah Collins. She tried to find the reason for her relief, and ultimately decided that it had to be the dream she'd had of being at his grave.

A voice in her head, however, was adamant that Barnabas's declaration that Josette du Pres had not come to Collinsport to marry Jeremiah played a strong part in her feelings. It had made itself known as soon as she and Barnabas had entered the drawing room together, and it had lingered for some time. She'd heard its whisper as Barnabas had led her to a chair and offered her a drink, and heard its whimper as his fingers had brushed hers. Then it had suddenly vanished, and she brushed the experience aside, thinking it to have been her imagination.

"Yes, it would be fitting," Barnabas quietly echoed Roger's sentiment in a voice filled with false sincerity. He was standing behind her chair, close enough that every word he uttered cut through her, making it a challenge for her to concentrate on anyone else in the room.

"I heard they were very much in love," Carolyn said to Barnabas. It was an innocent comment, but Josette saw something in her friend's eyes that made her tense. Barnabas's hand had been resting on the back of her chair, and she felt it curl around the upholstery. His knuckles dug into her shoulder, and she eased herself away from their pressure, careful not to draw attention to herself.

"That's not true," Barnabas said quickly, coldly, then his tone softened, "I'm sorry. There are so many false versions of the old legends…hearing them tends to make me impatient."

"I have to agree with Barnabas, Kitten," Roger chimed in. "After all, we need only look at the fate of Josette Collins. Throwing yourself over a cliff could hardly be anything other than an act of utmost misery. She was obviously an unhappy young woman."

Josette deposited her glass on the table before it could slip through her fingertips and break. She put her hand to her throat to smother the gasp that threatened to escape from within her, and paled at the turn the night had taken, feeling sick.

She had asked Carolyn many things about Josette Collins after Barnabas had invited her to the party.

Why had she not asked her how Josette Collins had died?

She had been so intrigued to learn of her existence, so interested in her _life_, that she had not thought to inquire about her death.

Elizabeth and Carolyn shared a look, and Josette surmised from their silent exchange that neither of them were comfortable discussing Josette Collins. She pondered their reluctance, wondering if she were one of the reasons.

Barnabas had stepped around her chair and moved to the side of the fireplace that Roger did not occupy. He gazed impasively into the flames that flickered in the hearth. She knew from the way he'd spoken of Josette Collins to her that he held her in high regard.

How could he do that when he knew of the fate she had brought upon herself?

"Her reason for ending her life is not listed in the family history, at least that I'm aware of. I'm no expert on the subject, but I am curious," Roger said. "Why did she do it?"

"She was running from her lover." Carolyn glanced at Barnabas, and again there was something in her eyes that Josette did not like. "Barnabas, do you remember telling us the story the night Vicki and I were up late because of the storm?"

"Of course. I remember every word."

He sounded as if he wished that he had forgotten.

"Her lover?" Roger raised his eyebrows. "I assume you mean her husband. Well, that just further disproves what you heard about them being in love. Why would she run from him if she loved him? What could have driven her to that cliff?"

"Terror," Josette whispered before Carolyn could reply.

A shadowed flame swept over her in the form of Barnabas's stare, scorching her with its shaded intensity.

Every pair of eyes in the room had fallen on her, and her face flushed underneath the family's scrutiny. "Of course, it's only speculation," she said softly, flustered. "He must have frightened her in some way. Perhaps she was so frightened that she became blinded by her fear and did not realize what was happening."

She focused on the shiny satin of her dress so that she would not have to see any of their reactions to her words. A strange shame filled her - a part of her wanted to apologize for Josette Collins's final, fatal choice.

She could feel the burn of Barnabas's eyes, and she avoided his gaze, somehow afraid of what she would see in their dark depths.

A bell rang distinctly through the night air, and Carolyn mentioned it immediately, for which Josette was very grateful.

"It's the chapel bell in the valley," Barnabas said. "I often hear it at night."

He was still staring at her, and it was almost as if something forced her to raise her eyes to meet his. The fear of what she would see turned into remorse when she glimpsed only pain in them.

_Why is he looking at me that way, as if it were my fault? And why do I feel so ashamed, like it _is _my fault?_

She surrendered to the darkness of his eyes as they continued to dance without music or motion to a sorrow that neither of them should have felt. The light from the candles drifted from her vision completely, and suddenly, she was staring down at a storm tossed sea as wave after wave struck the shore below her.

She was the shore and he the sea.

_Or is he the storm……_

They held each other's gaze until Roger's musings startled them both and severed the spell that had, for a moment, bound them together so intimately that time itself had seemed to stand still. The image of the sea vanished, and she could not will it to return to her. She was not certain that she wanted it to.

"The stroke of eleven, the hour before midnight. What a splendid time to be visited by a ghost."

"Roger, don't talk like that!" Elizabeth sharply rebuked him.

"I was only joking, Liz."

His humor did not go over well. Carolyn said nothing, and Barnabas's only reaction to his cousin's comment was to clear his throat and offer them more to drink.

It was then that Josette shivered, noticing for the first time the chill that had pervaded the room. Something cold crawled across her skin, leaving its icy touch on her throat, causing her to cry out.

Barnabas was beside her in an instant. "Is something wrong?"

Josette searched for the right words to describe the sensation, "I was chilled, and I… I felt something cold against my neck."

"This house tends to work on the imagination." Barnabas's tone was gentle. The pain she had seen in his eyes had dissipated, thought it had not disappeared entirely.

She was beginning to regret coming to the party. She could not help but think that the family would have been better off if she had stayed at Collinwood. It was unlikely that the subject of Josette Collins would have been broached at all if she'd not been present, and there would have been no talk of phantom sensations that must have existed only in her head.

"What if it wasn't your imagination?" Roger regarded Josette with an expression of interest. "Could you have been touched by a ghost?"

_A ghost..._

"Roger, you must be joking."

"Liz, we all know of the legends of Collinwood. Ghosts of the past come back to haunt this house. What if one of them was trying to contact Josette for some reason? I think we should meet it half way. I think we should have a séance."

Josette was no longer listening to Roger. She had been distracted by his claim that a ghost could be trying to contact her. The thought immediately called to her mind the dream of Jeremiah Collins.

_No, I will not think of it. It was only a dream, nothing more…. _

Meanwhile, Barnabas and Roger had become engaged in a heated discussion, and neither of them seemed about to give in.

"Roger, I must warn you, I am not overly fond of parlor games."

"Oh, but this isn't a game. We had a séance once, and to my amazement it was quite successful. Now, let's bring that table over there to the middle of the floor and move these chairs around it."

"I really must protest."

There was an unmistakable edge to Barnabas's voice, and Josette was stunned that Roger did not seem to take note of it.

"What's your objection?"

"Frightening the ladies," Barnabas said, gesturing to where she sat with Elizabeth and Carolyn, neither of whom appeared to be anymore at ease with Roger's plan than she was.

"Are you sure you're not afraid?" Roger challenged Barnabas, studying him with a critical eye. "Many people fear the unseen, but you surprise me. I didn't think you would be one of them."

"Of course I'm not afraid."

"It's no use, Barnabas. Once Roger gets an idea in his head it's very hard to make him change his mind. It's best to humor him," Elizabeth said.

Her resignation was palpable, and Josette knew that they would be going forward with Roger's proposal.

Roger grinned at her. "Good. Then we'll go on with it?"

"Reluctantly, but I think it's a waste of time."

Barnabas bowed his head in defeat, and Josette watched with growing anxiety as he assisted Roger in moving the table to the center of the room and placing the chairs around it.

Roger had called what they were about to hold a 'séance'. The word was unfamiliar to her. Had she participated in one before? She did not know. All she knew was that she did not want to take part in this one. She was convinced that the others - especially Barnabas - felt as she did.

Barnabas waited until she was seated next to Roger before lowering himself into the chair to her left. Carolyn was sitting directly across from her, and Elizabeth was in between Carolyn and Barnabas. She focused on the candle that Barnabas had set in the middle of the table in an effort to calm herself. She was very nervous, and she knew that her nervousness was a result of her dream.

"Everyone touch fingertips so that we have a complete circle of communication," Roger instructed. Josette watched as Elizabeth, Carolyn and Roger put their hands flat on the wood's surface and then she did the same. One pair of hands, however, was missing. Roger pointed it out, "Barnabas, you haven't joined the circle."

"Forgive me."

Barnabas slowly placed his hand next to hers so that their fingertips met, and when he did, Josette returned her attention to the candle. Barnabas's close proximity made her even _more_ nervous. Even the smallest touch between them seemed to ignite something inside of her. It was like a fire that waited to gather the strength it needed to consume her. If she stared at the candle, she could keep herself from turning to stare at him. A single, small flame could not consume her the way that a fire could.

Roger informed them that they were to concentrate on the person they were trying to contact, then began calling out to the air around them, imploring the spirit to speak, "Is there someone here with us? Is one of our ancestors in this room? Is it you, Joshua? Naomi? Millicent? Josette? Jeremiah? If someone one is here, speak to us!"

_Please do not let it be Jeremiah!_

Josette closed her eyes and she was back in Eagle Hill, kneeling before Jeremiah's grave. This time, however, there was a headstone beside his, and it bore the name of the woman that had begun to be more real to her than her own self.

_**Josette Collins**_

_**Born 1774 Died 1795**_

Sudden laughter swept through the room, a familiar, bitter wind that Josette had encountered before. Startled, she opened her eyes and was met with a harrowing sight.

A cold smile marred Carolyn's face. It was her laughter that enveloped the room in a thick, invisible fog - except that it was not her laughter at all. Carolyn's laughter was light and fun, it was not the mocking, cruel laughter - the laughter Josette had heard in a dream - that now echoed through the house. Carolyn's expression….no, not _Carolyn's_ expression - the expression of the one who had taken over her - was filled with pure hatred.

And that hatred was directed at Josette.

But when a bone chilling warning spilled savagely from Carolyn's lips, it was addressed not to Josette, but to Barnabas.

"_Remember, Barnabas. Remember my curse. Whoever loves you will die. You will lose her again…you will always lose her."_

The candle on the table toppled over and the flame went out. The crystal chandelier suspended above them swayed violently back and forth as if it could fall at any moment and shatter. The double doors in the foyer opened, allowing the night air to rush into the room.

In the surrounding chaos, Josette thought she heard a child say her name.

Then the house became still, and Carolyn slumped forward in her chair with a shrill scream. In the silence that followed, no one moved.

Josette became aware of an ache in her left hand, as well the smooth gold band of Barnabas's ring against her skin. He was holding her hand tightly in his own. At some point during the séance, he had reached for her.

Dazed, she turned towards him without extracting her hand. He was staring at Carolyn as if she were a demon he both feared and despised. His eyes were black with a hatred that matched the one Josette had been given by the woman who had inhabited her friend. He rose swiftly from the table with his hand still locked around her own, and she had to bite her lip to keep from crying out.

"Angelique!"

It was a beautiful name, but Barnabas's whispered growl twisted its beauty and transformed it into something monstrous.

_Angelique._

_**Angelique.**_

Josette knew the name. It sent a shudder through her body, and an image of golden hair and large blue eyes swam into her mind. She was tempted to drown that image, to let it sink into the depths with her memories. She did not want to see that face. It was the face that she'd briefly recalled when she and Carolyn had been preparing to meet Burke and Victoria. It was the face from her dream.

She did not want to see the face that she knew had to belong to a woman named Angelique. A woman that must have been a part of her past, for there was no other explanation for how easily she had been able to envision her.

Barnabas had also known Angelique.

_She was a part of my past, and his…… A horrible part of _our_ past……_

_I know it._

_Why can I not remember it?_

Josette had gone numb. She did not feel Barnabas let go of her hand. She stood, frozen, as Elizabeth helped Carolyn from her chair and Roger suggested to Barnabas that "they had better call it a night". Apologies were uttered, and she found herself being guided through the foyer by Roger while Elizabeth tended to Carolyn.

_I cannot just leave…not without -_

"Barnabas…"

She sought him out and searched his eyes, waiting for him to ask her to stay. He wanted her to stay, she knew that- and she had many things, _so many things, _that she wanted to ask him.

_About Angelique... About us…_

She started towards him, but he shook his head.

"Go with them, my dear," he ordered her quietly, his tone distant. He turned his back on her and disappeared into the drawing room.

Shaking, and with no other choice, she did as she was told.

The family said very little on the way back to Collinwood, though Roger divulged a considerable amount of complaints about the dogs that had begun howling almost as soon as they had left the Old House.

"They sound unusually pitiful tonight, not to mention somewhere nearby."

Josette peered into the darkness and saw nothing. Nothing but decayed trees and dying leaves sheltered in an endless night.


	19. The Lovers

A/N - I apologize for another _long_ wait with this chapter...these middle chapters aren't coming as fast as I would like them to, which I probably should have known. This one and the next one is the turning point of the story. The latter chapters of this story are very well planned out and have been for a while, so things will run smoother (faster) after I get through this middle section. Hope my readers are still out there! Please review!

Note - I've did a little bit of blending on the pre-1795 and 1795 plot points/contradictions. For an example that will come into play soon, Josette's death on Widows' Hill played out the way that Barnabas described it to Carolyn and Victoria.

* * *

**Chapter 18: _The Lovers_**

Carolyn took a small sip of the tea that her mother had brought her. The scalding liquid slid down her throat and made her feel a bit warmer.

She had felt cold since the séance, like she would never be warm again.

Her mother sat beside her, watching her with concern. Her uncle was pouring himself a rather generous amount of brandy. Josette had excused herself after Carolyn assured her - three times - that she was fine and that there was no need for her to worry.

However, Carolyn was sure that Josette was still awake, and worrying, in her room.

And probably not only about her.

Carolyn had very little knowledge of what exactly happened at the party once Roger had started the séance, it was almost a complete blank for her. She could barely remember her mother putting her arm around her waist and walking with her to Roger's car. Both her mother and Josette had been very somber during the ride back to Collinwood. Only Roger seemed to have been unaffected by what had occurred. That would have been inexplicable to anyone else given the fact that the séance had been Roger's idea in the first place, but not to Carolyn. He was just the type who would wave the whole thing off.

"How are you feeling?"

She gave her mother a tired, forced smile so that, hopefully, _someone_ would stop worrying.

"I'm fine, but my heart's still racing."

"Of course it is, Kitten." Roger grinned widely at her. "It's from all the excitement you've had this evening."

Her mother gave Roger a reproachful look. "Excitement? I would hardly use that word to describe it. Disturbing would be far more appropriate."

Roger was about to protest, but Carolyn cut into on the conversation before he had the chance, knowing how he and her mother could argue until the night had passed and the day began, "I can't deny that a part of me was scared once I realized what happened, but it's not fear that I feel now….it's anger. This terrible anger. But I know it's not really _my_ anger."

Roger tilted his head. "What do you mean, Kitten?"

"I think this anger that I'm feeling was left behind by the person who spoke through me," she explained.

"We did seem to contact a rather grumpy ghost," he acknowledged dryly.

"Seem? Uncle Roger, you heard her speak. Can't you tell me what I - what she said?"

"I'm afraid neither of us can answer that question, darling," her mother told her. "She spoke in French, and very quickly. We were so shocked that even if she hadn't, I'm not sure we would have understood her. We could hardly keep up with what was happening."

"We did understand one word though," Roger added. "She said Barnabas's name."

Carolyn felt herself grow pale. "Barnabas?"

Roger nodded. "I daresay that if Barnabas wasn't afraid of a séance before, he most certainly is now."

"Roger, don't talk that way," Elizabeth said in a scolding tone, the kind she'd used with Carolyn countless times over the years. "I felt so sorry for him. He wanted so badly to give us an enjoyable evening."

"And he did. It was certainly a night to remember. And I seem to recall you having doubts about attending the party, Liz."

"I had doubts about wearing these costumes and the reliance on the past, not his desire to have the family spend some time together. And there is nothing enjoyable about watching other people suffer! Barnabas was so unhappy when we left, Josette couldn't get to her room fast enough, and poor Carolyn's obviously not feeling well after the ordeal you put her through."

"Mother, I'm all right," Carolyn protested, but as expected, she went unheard by both of them.

"You're taking it too seriously," Roger insisted. "I may believe in it, but that doesn't mean I take it seriously. Though I do admit to being incredibly surprised when she said Barnabas's name. I assume she was talking about the first Barnabas….. I wonder who she was. I think we can rule out Naomi, so that leaves us with Millicent Collins and Josette Collins. It could have been Millicent. Carolyn did dress as Millicent for the party. But since the woman spoke to us in French it could just as easily have been Josette. And it was our Josette that felt the hand on her shoulder- "

Carolyn interrupted him, "It wasn't either of them."

She was sure of that, though she didn't exactly know why. She was not the history buff that her cousin was. Though she knew quite a bit more about Josette Collins than she'd known previously and was positive it had not been Josette, she knew next to nothing of Millicent Collins. The woman could have been Millicent. But Millicent wouldn't have spoken in French….

"Who else could it have been, Kitten?"

Her mother didn't give her a chance to reply. "Do we have to know? I think it would be best forgotten."

Carolyn strongly disagreed. She didn't want to simply forget it and pretend it never happened. She wanted to know who the woman had been, why she had been so angry, and what Barnabas Collins had to do with it. Maybe if she hadn't been the one that the woman had used she wouldn't have cared so much, but the lingering effects of the séance made it impossible for her to sweep it under the rug and never think of it again.

"I don't believe there was any mention of another woman in the Old House during those early years except for Abigail Collins," Roger continued, oblivious or ignoring of his sister's opinion that the séance should be forgotten. "Of course there were a few servants that were obviously not important enough to be included in the family history."

"I'm not sure that the family history is as accurate as everyone thinks it is," Carolyn said. She replayed the séance in her head and added to it the marriage of Jeremiah and Josette Collins. "Uncle Roger, do you remember when we were talking about Josette Collins and what made her throw herself from Widows' Hill?"

"Yes, I remember thinking it was odd that Jeremiah was the one chasing her."

"Mother, you know more about the family history than we do." Carolyn turned to her. "When did Jeremiah die?"

She was asking a question that she already knew the answer to. She suspected that her mother, however, would provide her with a different one.

"Well, from the accounts I've read he lived well past Josette's suicide."

"He didn't." Carolyn shook her head and ignored the headache that she felt coming on. "He died in the same year she did. I saw his grave in Eagle Hill when I walked through it with Josette. Don't you think it's a little odd that what's written in the family history seems so contradicting? Barnabas said that Josette was being chased by her lover the night she killed herself. Why would he refer to Jeremiah as her lover when he was her husband? 'Lover' almost implies a scandal of some sort, and he didn't mention Jeremiah by name at all."

"A different version of the tale could have been handed down to him in England," Roger replied. "It's just as he mentioned - there are so many legends about Collinwood and the Old House… There's really no way of knowing for sure what's truth and what's fiction." He gave her a wry grin. "One thing is certain, our family seems to have a long standing tradition of hiding skeletons in our respective closets."

Carolyn knew that Roger's explanation was a reasonable one, but she couldn't get past what Barnabas had told her friend.

_Barnabas said that Josette du Pres came to Collinsport to marry his ancestor, not Jeremiah. If that's true, the two of them must have shared something, something that couldn't have been banished so easily after she married Jeremiah…._

Then something clicked in Carolyn's mind. Something that brought back in full force the heavy foreboding that had coursed through her on her walk through the cemetery this afternoon. David's attachment to Josette Collins, his declaration that Sarah was a ghost, and finally, her cousin's love for the past and interest in Josette Collins.

A suspicion was beginning to form. A suspicion that terrified her more than anything, even though it was not yet clear enough for her to grasp it and see it for what it truly was.

For what it truly _meant_.

That suspicion was only heightened by the thought in her head, the assumption that she felt she could safely make based on the few pieces of a puzzle not yet completed. She still couldn't see what image the puzzle would show her. But this suspicion, this piece of that puzzle, seemed important somehow, as if it held the clue to all that was occupying her thoughts.

_Barnabas Collins was the lover. _

The one who had pursued Josette Collins to the edge of the cliff.

* * *

Without moving from his place on the bottom of the stairs, Willie let out a breath that he hadn't known he'd been holding.

Time had passed by while he had been standing there, so still that he could hear his pounding heart as it thundered in his chest. He felt like he had been standing there for years, so long that the bottom of his shoes had grown roots and planted themselves on the second to last step. He was gripping the banister hard enough that his knuckles were white and his skin was stretched taut over the bone.

The family had left, and Josette had left with them - something for which he was extremely grateful. But the look on her face as she did….

Willie had made himself scarce during Barnabas's party, knowing that Barnabas wouldn't want him intruding. He'd spent most of the night upstairs fixing something in his room, trying to keep himself from wondering was happening downstairs. He would stop working occasionally to listen. He hadn't been able to hear much of anything except muffled voices that he couldn't make out. Finally, he'd given up and went back to his task -

Then came the wild laughter, so clear that it had sounded as if the woman laughing was in a room near his in the servant's quarters. After dropping the hammer that had been in his hand, he'd raced into the hall, searching for the source of the sound.

That was when he had seen the transparent figure, standing - no, _glowing_ - at the end of the hall: a woman, dressed in an old gown that was ragged and worn. She'd had blonde hair and the biggest blue eyes Willie had ever seen in his life; eyes that could have drive any man to the point of delirious distraction.

She had turned to him and smiled, and knives of terror had pierced through him as she did, carving up his insides and rendering him helpless under their sharp blades.

There had been something evil in that woman's smile.

Willie knew what evil was. He'd found it that night in the mausoleum after carelessly breaking the rusted chains that had sealed an ancient, hidden coffin. But something about the blonde haired woman had made him doubt how much he knew about evil for the first time since a dead man had wrapped his hand around his throat and sunk his fangs into his wrist.

Willie had started running then, and was halfway down the stairs when he'd seen the little girl next to one of the pillars in the drawing room.

Sarah, Barnabas's sister.

Yet _another_ ghost.

Willie had glanced into the drawing room just in time to see Carolyn throw her head back, scream, then collapse. The others had been seated around her at the large table, and Barnabas and Josette had been holding hands with their backs to him.

Willie had looked at Sarah again, just in time to see her vanish before his overworked eyes. He hadn't moved since.

Mrs. Stoddard had helped Carolyn out of the house, and Roger followed with Josette. He had watched Barnabas advise Josette to leave with the family and then retreat into the drawing room without even noticing Willie on the stairs.

Willie wondered how much more he could take. How much more he would _have_ to take.

He slowly loosened his grip on the banister. His hands were sticky with sweat, so much so that they almost stuck to the wood as he lifted them away from it. He couldn't decide if he should go see what Barnabas was doing or flee back upstairs, shut the door to his room, and play ignorant later if Barnabas brought up whatever it was that had happened tonight.

_I can't. I'll just keep seein' that woman if I do that. I gotta find out what happened. I gotta know! I'll never be able to sleep in this house again unless I know!_

He put one foot in front of the other, and eventually, he reached the drawing room. Barnabas was standing in its center, staring up at the high ceiling, his face contorted with rage.

For a minute, Willie thought that he might go on a rampage and tear the entire house apart. He almost wished that Barnabas would, then maybe the ghosts would go away and take the horrors that haunted this house with them.

And if luck was on Willie's side for once, take Barnabas with them as well.

Willie had seen Barnabas angry plenty of times, but there was something different about what Willie was witnessing now. Willie had never seen him like this - not when he had found out about Willie making the phone call to Victoria on the night he'd first tried to take Maggie; not when he'd woken up and found Jason opening the lid of his coffin; not even when he'd learned that Willie had attempted to warn Josette away from Collinsport.

"ANGELIQUE!"

Barnabas's roar tore through the empty drawing room like a gunshot, and Willie almost ducked to the ground like he did the time when he and Jason had "accidentally" gotten themselves in the middle of a shootout on the California coast.

"Is the memory of you that I've carried with me for over one hundred and seventy years not enough? Must you continue to torment me? You will not take Josette from me again! I will not allow you to ruin what I finally have an opportunity to regain. Go back to Hell where you belong and leave us alone!"

Willie imagined he could feel the very foundation of the house shake with the wrathful force of Barnabas's voice. Like a scared mouse, he crept further into the room just in time to see Barnabas fall into his chair and bring one hand up to cover his eyes. It was almost as if he had become exhausted by his anger and no longer had the strength to remain standing.

Willie stopped moving a few feet away from Barnabas's chair, not about to get any closer. When Barnabas was in a mood such as the one he was currently in, Willie knew to keep his distance.

"B-Barnabas?" When he received no response, he bravely, foolishly, forged ahead, "Barnabas, who………who's Angelique?"

Willie already had some kind of idea, and that idea was made up of blonde hair, blue eyes, and a sadistic smile.

Without turning his head or lowering his hand, Barnabas answered him in a hoarse snarl filled with pure loathing, "My wife."

"Wife?"

The word slipped out before Willie could stop it, and his mind reeled from Barnabas's revelation. Wife. Barnabas had been married. He'd had wife named Angelique. He tried to fit that in with some of the other things he knew about Barnabas's past, like his obsessive love for Josette and his hatred of Jeremiah. It just didn't fit.

_All this pinin' over Josette and he was married to another woman! A pretty woman. Yeah, pretty…but scary. _

_Really damn scary._

Angelique. Didn't that mean 'angelic' or something?

She hadn't seemed at all angelic to Willie when she'd appeared to him upstairs.

"It was she who forged my existence," Barnabas said coldly, while Willie just gaped at him. "She turned me into what I am now."

Willie reached for one of the smaller chairs and pulled it to him, his curiosity piqued. He'd always believed that Barnabas had chosen to be…different, and considered himself above normal men. Better than them. Willie would never have guessed that this life, if one could even call it that, wasn't something Barnabas had wanted for himself.

He sat down in the chair and kept quiet. He was afraid that Barnabas would stop talking if he said anything. In spite of himself, he wanted to hear Barnabas's story. He wanted to hear how someone could come to be what Barnabas was. Sure, he'd heard stories growing up, the kind that kids would tell before bed to scare each other, but that was all make believe. And this? This was real.

Very, very real.

But if Barnabas had any reservations over sharing his story with Willie, they apparently weren't strong enough for him to stay silent. As he began to speak again, the tone of his voice changed and became far less chilly, probably forgetting who it was that he was recounting his life to, and needing to tell the tale to someone.

"My father was an aloof man. Distant and unaffectionate to my mother, to Sarah….to me. Wealth, status and the respect that came with it mattered more to him than family. It mattered more to him than love. Sarah was too young to understand why our mother always seemed sad, or why she always had a drink in her hand. Mother tried to make up for our father's lack of attention when she was in need of it herself. Father felt I was too much like Mother, and that she had 'coddled' me as a child. I wanted to please him, but I could not be the man he wanted me to be. I could not so unemotional…so cold! I was his only son, the heir to his fortune, and a disappointment to him. This room saw many disagreements between the two of us. None ever ended in my favor."

Willie titled his head to the side, looking at Barnabas and trying to picture him the way he'd described himself. He couldn't envision Barnabas being intimidated by anyone, not even by his old man.

"I met Angelique on the French island of Martinique. She was a servant to the Countess du Pres," Barnabas continued. "Angelique was….like no other woman I had ever known, but then, I was rather naive in anything that did not involve shipyards and my family's wealth. I became intrigued by her, drawn to the passion that she laid bare for me to witness in all of its reckless abandon. She pursued me with no reservations, no thought to propriety. She was beautiful but it was not her beauty that brought me to her bed. It was my desire for a taste of that passion… It did not matter that it was hers, it would not have mattered whose it was. That I could drink it in, that was all that mattered. And drink it in I did. I thirsted for it because I had never allowed myself to have it. My father frowned on such a feeling. He even frowned on love."

Willie _could _envision that. All too well, in fact. A repressed young man goes to a tropical island and gets blindsided by a beautiful girl who offers herself up to him. What man could resist?

"But you didn't love her." It was a reasonable assumption on Willie's part.

He thought back on the women he had used to make himself feel better. All the times he'd lost himself in them because he wanted to forget for a little while that he was poor and that he would never amount to anything if he didn't scam his way to money. Jason had been just the friend, and the opportunity, that Willie had been looking for.

_God, what if one of 'em had turned me into- _

He put that out of his mind before it could go any further. He had bags under his eyes from the lack of sleep he'd been getting. He didn't need to add something else to the list of things that kept him awake when he was lying on his back in the stiff, broken down bed in his room.

"I…felt for her." Barnabas's reluctance in admitting just that much was palpable. "I never intended our union to be anything more than a moment in time. A moment I would always remember that poured over me as rain, but was not meant to last. Rain always ends, and yet…..it always returns." He gave a small, bitter sounding laugh that made the hair stand up on the back of Willie's neck. "Rain. An appropriate analogy.

"I was sent to Martinique by my father. The du Pres family had amassed a fortune in sugar cane, and my father was always interested in those he could profit from. I was formally introduced to Josette the day of my arrival at the family's plantation. She was the opposite of Angelique, not only in looks but in manner as well. She had an enchanting innocence and a grace that few women truly possess. I did not entertain the prospect of a union between the two of us. Not in the beginning. I did not think she would consider me, nor did I believe Andre du Pres would find me suitable. Many men presented themselves to her and her father. I kept a respectful distance, though my eyes strayed to her whenever she was within my sight. I could never help myself. Her smile and her laughter, both so genuine and unassuming….a vision and sound that were foreign to me. I became riveted by her. One night I was restless, unable to sleep, so I went for a walk along the shore. I saw Josette. When she noticed me she panicked and begged me not to tell her aunt that she was outside alone. I assured her that I would not, and that it would certainly be the end of me if the Countess discovered us together, even in such an innocent predicament. Impulsively, feeling that fate itself had offered me an opportunity to interact with her away from the watchful eye of others, I convinced her to accompany me on my walk."

Barnabas smiled. Willie knew that in his mind, he wasn't in the Old House, but on Martinique with Josette, reliving one of his happier memories.

"By the time we crept silently back into her family's home and wished each other good night I knew that I was falling in love with her. I spent the remainder of my stay in Martinique agonizing over it. I recognized that what I had shared with Angelique had been about escaping my father and his expectations of me rather than giving into what I truly wanted. What was passion without love? I….I should have been firm with Angelique, but I did not know how to explain myself to her. I had not intentionally set out to hurt her. I found myself unable to tell her of my love for Josette. I thought that she would forget me, that she was not in love with me and that she would find someone who could give her his heart. I had given mine to Josette."

"I left Martinique wondering if I would ever see Josette again. We began to write to each other once I returned to Collinsport. Even though I thought nothing would ever come of our contact I kept every letter I received from her in a drawer in my desk, and when I was upset or angry I would take them out and read them. I withheld my feelings for her in those early letters, fully expecting to read one day that she was promised to a wealthy man from Martinique that had impressed her father with his knowledge of sugar cane. That letter never came. Instead, her letters grew more affectionate towards me, and I could easily imagine her smiling as she described the events of her day to me, as well as sense her honest interest in mine. I forced myself to overcome my fear of her rejection. What astonishment I felt when I read that she returned my feelings! With her father's permission, we became betrothed. My father was ecstatic, not because I was happy, but because of Andre du Pres's profitable plantation. I did not care. Josette was all that mattered to me, and I waited eagerly for her arrival.

"The Countess and her servant arrived before Josette and her father. It was in utter shock that I opened the door to see Angelique standing beyond it. She came to my room that very night, hoping to resume our relationship in spite of my impending marriage to Josette. She was willing to be my mistress. I refused her. I told her that I loved Josette," Barnabas paused, and Willie watched his mouth twist into an ugly smirk. "But Angelique would not allow me to have happiness with Josette."

"How did she… I mean, I don't understand how she could've -" Willie struggled for the right way to phrase his question.

But Barnabas was well aware of what he wanted to know, and he responded flatly, "Angelique was a witch."

"A…a witch?" Willie rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. "How's that possible, Barnabas? Witches can't exist…they're just in stories."

Barnabas leveled a withering glare at him, and Willie was struck by how inane he must have sounded.

"She wrought damnation upon my family before I discovered what she was. It was too late then to undo the damage that she had done. No one suspected her. She was nothing more than a mere servant girl to both families. It was easier to cast the blame on Sarah's governess, a stranger to all who had arrived only days before the odd occurrences began. Now as I look back I cannot believe how foolish I was to have not seen it; to have not seen her wickedness, her obsessive and jealous nature.

"She cast a spell upon Josette and Jeremiah and made them fall in love. The night that Josette was to marry me, she ran off with him into the village and became his wife. I will never forget how I felt when I walked into this room upon their return and was told by my father that they were married. All my father could worry about was the scandal while they destroyed every dream I'd ever had of happiness. Jeremiah was more of a brother than an uncle to me, and Josette…. They humiliated me. Deceived me. Betrayed me. I thought Josette had never loved me and Jeremiah had secretly hated me. How else could they have done what they did to me? I challenged Jeremiah to a duel."

_Guess I don't have to ask who survived…_

Willie cringed. If he had never gone to the mausoleum, never found the secret room, he would have thought that this was all just some crazy story. A really good piece of horror fiction, something that he and Jason might have had a laugh over while they shared a drink in some port. The idea that one woman could ruin so many people's lives would have been impossible to him if his own life hadn't been demolished by the man that was sitting only a short distance away from him.

Barnabas folded his hands in his lap and leaned back in his chair with an air of calm that Willie knew better than to take at face value.

"I had never participated in a duel before, nor witnessed one. But my pain was too great to wish Jeremiah and Josette well and walk away. My father tried to forbid it. Even though the consequences frightened me, I was determined to go through with it. It was the first time I had ever truly defied my father. Jeremiah never offered a protest. He went along with it willingly. I think perhaps he wanted to die for marrying Josette. That night we met in the woods and I shot him. I turned Josette into a widow. Jeremiah - my uncle, my brother - was the first man I ever killed. Josette ran to his side and accused me of killing the only man she ever loved."

There was something tangy in Willie's mouth, a sharp flavor on his tongue that he didn't like. It only took a second for him to place it. He'd bitten his lower lip and drawn blood. Feeling sick at the taste, he wiped his lip with his shirt sleeve and tried to ignore the way the blood stained the cuff and how the taste still lingered on his tongue.

"When Sarah became ill, it was Angelique that helped make her well again. I was so grateful to her in that moment for saving my sister, and she wanted so much to marry me, I gave in. I would always love Josette, and told her that if she would accept that, then I would marry her. I had cared for Angelique on Martinique, and she promised to be a good wife. I believed her." The bitterness in Barnabas's voice was unmistakable, and Willie thought he could hear a tiny trace of self-loathing behind it. "My father disinherited me and said that I was no longer his son, but my mother gave us this house to live in. Mere days after our marriage, I discovered the truth. I discovered that Phyllis Wick, the governess, was not responsible for the horrors that had befallen my family. She was not the witch. The witch was my wife."

Willie frowned, and a hollow feeling entered the pit of his stomach.

"So many nights I had spent in anguish over Jeremiah and Josette's love for one another, and that love had never existed. Jeremiah had not willingly stolen my fiancée, and Josette had not deceived me. Angelique had forced them together, and she had created Sarah's illness so that she could be the one to cure her…. Everything had been orchestrated so that she could manipulate me into marrying her. Any affection I'd had for her vanished in an instant. I vowed to be the one to put an end to her trickery. I planned to poison her, and when that did not yield the result I wanted, I attempted to stab her in our bed while she slept. However, she knew that her secret had been exposed to me and stopped me with her threats. She threatened Josette. She threatened my family. She turned me into a prisoner in my own house."

Barnabas laughed then, and it was a hollow, empty laugh.

"This house had suddenly become my coffin, and she the chains that bound me inside of it. Foreshadowing in its finest form. There was no end to her malice. Desperate and frightened, I shot her with a pistol. But still she lived…."

"Damn," Willie whispered. He knew was what coming….

"She was bleeding on the floor and I stood over her, scarcely aware of what was happening. I heard her voice, I heard her words….Those words will be with me until the end of time, and time is endless. "I put a curse on you, Barnabas Collins!" she cried wretchedly to me, "You will never be able to love, for anyone who loves you will die. That is my curse, and you shall live with it through all eternity!" After she lost consciousness, a bat appeared; its wings fluttering as it flew to me, and its eyes glittering as it gazed into mine. I could not escape it. While I screamed in terror its fangs tore open my flesh. I remember very little after that, except Josette at my bedside. In my delirium, I promised to return to her. She promised to wait for me." Barnabas swept his hand over his eyes and turned away from Willie. "Her face was the last face I saw as a living man."

"Angelique….did….did ya kill her?"

"Yes, Willie, I killed her. At dusk on the day that my father had my coffin placed in the secret room, I opened my eyes and found her above me with a stake and hammer in her hands. The very sight of her sent such hatred spiraling through me that I never noticed the hunger that had already begun to burn through me. She claimed that she loved me still. I trapped her against the coffin and put my hands around her throat. She loved me….so she would die. She would be the first victim of her own curse. I watched her struggle for breath as I strangled her. There was only the slightest satisfaction for me as she became lifeless in my grasp - she was gone but she had taken me down into the darkness, leaving me with nothing but the night and the longing for a life I would never live."

Goosebumps had formed on Willie's arms and he roughly ran his hands up and down them in an effort to make them go away. Barnabas was staring into the flames without blinking, without moving. He was utterly still, and the house seemed to sense it because it became as still as Barnabas.

As still as death.

"But…she came back, didn't she? That laughter was hers," Willie said, breaking that stillness, his statement causing Barnabas to rise from his chair. He could see Barnabas's agitation in his movements.

"Yes," Barnabas acknowledged. "It was the séance. I had never considered that she could cross the barrier between life and death through the séance or I would not have allowed Roger to conduct it. She used Carolyn to repeat her curse to me. She knows that Josette is alive again and that I can be with her, and Angelique will do everything in her power to keep me from welcoming Josette into my existence." Barnabas stood near the window, a grim expression on his face. "That is why I sent Josette away. How I hated to send her away! But I feared what Angelique would have done had I asked her to remain. Josette is not safe here as long as Angelique's presence defiles this house."

Willie looked up at Barnabas as a memory of the shredded lining in the coffin in the basement wafted through his mind and presented him with a sudden insight.

"Barnabas, she must've been responsible for what happened to ya a couple of nights ago when you couldn't get outta your coffin! That….that was when Josette was here

and I….I walked her back to Collinwood…."

Willie cringed as he remembered how angry Barnabas had been over his pathetic attempt to keep Josette from him.

The bruises had just started fading.

Barnabas's eyes widened and he gripped the back of his chair tightly. "Of course! Angelique was responsible… Why did I not think of it? Even I am not safe here."

Willie held his tongue between his teeth, forced to make a decision. He knew that Sarah had stopped Angelique somehow. He'd seen it with his own eyes. There was a chance that Angelique hadn't been able to come back at all, at least not fully. He might not have known about ghosts or how they worked, but he'd seen Sarah standing there facing Carolyn, and heard Carolyn scream right before Sarah disappeared.

But, if Willie told Barnabas that, he would bring Josette to the Old House.

_If I let Barnabas think Angelique's still floatin' around here somewhere, he'll be too afraid to bring Josette here. Sure, he could go see her at Collinwood, but he couldn't hurt her there….he couldn't make her into what he is while she's there…too many people around. _

_But Barnabas said she recognized him…if she did….if she is Josette du Pres…if she is…. Nah, she'll be terrified of him, just like she was when she jumped from Widows' Hill. She won't willingly come here if she remembers. She won't willingly come to him…._

_And if Barnabas finds out about Sarah bein' here tonight, confrontin' Angelique, and that I didn't tell him about it, he'll kill me. No, he'll do _worse_ than kill me… I can't stop what's gonna happen to Josette, anyway. I wish I could…but I can't! I'm as helpless now as I was when Barnabas brought Maggie here! It's useless. I couldn't save Maggie's life, and I got even less of a chance to save Josette's. He'll never let her go. He was willin' to kill Maggie, but he'll never kill her. She'll suffer for eternity…._

_I gotta tell him. He'll find out sooner or later, anyway…._

"I don't think ya need to worry about Angelique," Willie stuttered, wishing that he had more courage, hating that he didn't.

Barnabas approached him with a glare of confusion. "Explain yourself, Willie."

"I…I saw Sarah tonight, Barnabas." Seeing Barnabas tense, he explained hastily, "I was up in my room and I heard that laughter. I came down the stairs to see what was happenin', and she was standin' over there by that pillar." Willie nodded his head towards it. "Barnabas, I think….I think she stopped Angelique."

"Sarah." The expression on Barnabas's face turned to one of wonder. "Could Sarah have sent Angelique away? Could Sarah have protected me from her? Perhaps she understands now that it's Angelique who is responsible for what I am. Perhaps she will finally let me see her..."

"What if she didn't?" Willie countered, thinking that it couldn't hurt to make Barnabas more cautious. "I mean, what if Sarah didn't get rid of Angelique? I saw her and it looked like she did somethin', but I can't be sure! Barnabas, what are ya gonna do if I'm wrong?"

Barnabas's silence was an answer in itself.

Hadn't Willie hoped every day since he'd stumbled across the secret room in the mausoleum that someone would come along and be able to destroy Barnabas?

Usually the person in the scenarios that he made up in his head was Sheriff Patterson. Sometimes though, as much as Willie hated it because he never wanted to owe him a damn thing, it was Burke Devlin. He knew Burke would destroy Barnabas without a second's hesitation if he discovered the truth. A girl that Barnabas attacked would be able to describe him, the police would get suspicious, and Patterson or Devlin would show up at the house during the afternoon and demand to be taken to the basement and shown Barnabas's coffin. Once they got over the initial shock of seeing him laying helpless in the coffin, they would take the stake and drive it through Barnabas's heart. Barnabas's eyes would fly open, he would scream, then that would be the end. Willie would be free, at least in some way, even if he was led out of the Old House and thrown into a police car.

_A witch ain't exactly what I had in mind._

He wouldn't have cared before. He would have welcomed her with open arms if he thought she was going to get rid of Barnabas. He wouldn't have cared if the devil himself rose up from Hell and swallowed Barnabas whole. He especially felt that way whenever he was recovering from a brutal beating, or after he'd heard someone mention Maggie's name in town.

But now….now that he knew Barnabas's past, now that he knew about Angelique…. He didn't know how he felt. He didn't know how he was _supposed_ to feel.

All he knew was that he didn't want that….woman….witch…._whatever_ she was, hanging around the Old House. Nothing good could come from that.

Nothing good at all.

* * *

It was late.

Far too late for Josette to be awake and still dressed in the gown she had worn to the costume party. She had not even removed her shoes or freed her hair from its elaborate upsweep.

The family had gone to bed. She'd listened as their footsteps could be heard in the hall outside of her bedroom and waited until they were asleep before she had embarked on a journey from her room to the downstairs drawing room. She now sat at the piano with her fingers resting lightly on the keys, imagining that she knew how to play it.

She was beginning to become more comfortable at Collinwood. She knew, however, that that was not necessarily a good thing. She could not stay at Collinwood forever. Some day the family would surely tire of taking care of her, and then she would be on her own. But the thought of leaving and attempting to enter the world beyond the estate only added to the anxiety that was already tormenting her.

How would she ever forget what happened at the Old House tonight?

"Angelique," she whispered to the empty room. "The woman's name was Angelique."

_I knew her. I had to. She was in one of my dreams. Hers was the face I glimpsed while talking to Carolyn - the gold hair and blue eyes. Her laughter… I've heard it before. Long ago….. How long ago?"_

Josette absently traced the piano keys with her fingertips.

_Too long for it to have been possible… I mustn't allow myself to think such silly things. Roger said that the séance was to contact a spirit of the first Collins family. They lived in the Old House over a century ago! Angelique had to have lived then, how else would we have been able to contact her?_

_But if that were true, I would not remember her. I would not see her face in my dreams. I would not be so frightened of her laughter._

_Angelique must be the key….the key to unlocking my memories._

_And I was not the only one who recognized her…._

Barnabas had recognized Angelique. There was no disputing that fact. His reaction was one of a man who had come face to face with an enemy, and the hatred he'd had for her had overwhelmed and confused Josette.

_If Barnabas knew her, and I remember her…. That must be the connection between us. That must be why I feel so drawn to him. But what reason would he have for pretending that we are strangers? Perhaps we knew her at different times in our lives…perhaps we _are_ strangers._

_Then why do I have such strong feelings for him? Why does he affect me so? _

_And he shows interest in me. He invited me to his party when it made very little sense for him to do so. Even when we first met here in the drawing room…he was so attentive._

Resolutely, Josette rose from the piano seat and walked into the foyer. She glanced at the portrait of the eighteenth century Barnabas and gathered herself.

She would go to the Old House.

She would go to Barnabas.

And she would demand answers.

She ignored the little voice inside of her head that warned her not to, that she should not simply run out into the night unaccompanied to a man whom she'd only known for days. As long as she returned before morning, she reasoned with it, no one would know that she had gone. They could not worry if they were not aware of her excursion.

She took a deep breath, opened the paneled wooden doors of Collinwood, and cried out in surprise.

Barnabas Collins was standing before her in the night's shroud.

Like her, he was still in his costume, only now he wore a heavy black cloak that concealed much of it from her view. She was too stunned to speak, and he was as silent as she. She felt herself grow warm as he stared at her, his gaze sweeping over her form. The smallest of smiles touched his lips and he held out his hand.

"Come with me, Josette," he commanded softly, his voice the piano melody she had wished to create in the drawing room.

He drew her forward with his eyes. She gave him her hand, and he led her into the darkness.

She never noticed Carolyn above her on the landing, watching her as she followed Barnabas from the mansion.


End file.
